Gather the elderberries when quite ripe; put them into a stone
jar, mash them with a round stick, and set them in a warm oven, or
in a large kettle of boiling water till the jar is hot through,
and the berries begin to simmer. Then take them out, and press and
strain them through a sieve. To every quart of juice allow a pound
of Havanna or Lisbon sugar, and two quarts of cold soft water. Put
the sugar into a large kettle, pour the juice over it, and, when
it has dissolved, stir in the water. Set the kettle over the fire,
an& boil and skim it till the scum ceases to rise. To four gallons
of the liquor add a pint and a half of brandy. Put it into a keg,
and let it stand with the bung put in loosely for four or five
days, by which time it will have ceased to ferment. Then stop it
closely, plastering the bung with clay. At the end of six months,
draw off a little of it; and if it is not quite clear and bright,
refine it with the whites and shells of three or four eggs, beaten
to a stiff froth and stirred into a quart of the wine, taken out
for the purpose and then returned to the cask; or you may refine
it with an ounce or more of dissolved isinglass. Let it stand a
week or two, and then bottle it.
This is an excellent domestic wine, very common in England, and
deserving to be better known in America, where the elderberry tree
is found in great abundance. Elderberry wine is generally taken
mulled with spice, and warm.