No cider this year!

I very much doubt I will find the time and the equipment this year! I have two apple trees in my garden and have started to at least dry some of the apples. I wont be able to do any preserving either, I have no idea where my preserving pan has gone!
The good news is [...]

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Honey Show and propolis

I went to the National Honey Show yesterday and really enjoyed it. I didn’t manange to get to all the things I wanted because I overslept, but I still found it very worthwhile. I went to a workshop on making wax flowers…see my effort. Now to be honest with you I am busy enough as [...]

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My cider turned out very well!

Happy to report that the cider making went very well, and I am on  my way through the second gallon! Once I has sorted out the fruit crushing I found it very easy. Much easier than wine making, in my humble opinion. With the credit crunch scaring the world to death its a very good [...]

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A pleasant weekend bottling wine and making banana liqueur.

The weather was so gorgeous last weekend I felt almost human. I don’t know about you but I feel so much more energetic when the sun is out but its not too hot. I have been meaning to bottle some of my home made country wines for ages. As I prefer to do this out [...]

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Blackberry Whisky

Due to popular demand I am putting up the recipe for this. I didn’t make any this year due to the wedding but definately will next year. Leave for as long as possible before drinking (within reason!)…..it improves with age.
400 g ( 14 ozs) blackberries
200 g (7 ozs) sugar
426ml ( 15fluid ozs) whisky
15 ml ( 1 tbs ) [...]

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A quick request.

If you are visiting this site (particularly from the US) please help support our campaign against the Chinese fur trade. I run a seperate family friendly blog on the subject…see Boris’s campaigning blog on right. Please visit it and pass the details on to friends. The Chinese skin animals WHILE STILL CONSCIOUS for the fur [...]

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Pear Liqueur

As promised.
The strawberry liqueur I made a few days back is coming along fine ( right), so as I had a glut of pears I have made some pear as well. Its interesting that both the kilner jars hold approximately the same amount of liquid, it doesn’t look as though they do, does it? This is [...]

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my wooden thing has gone funny!

I am a bit worried about my wooden fruit crusher. A useful tool but it seems to be suffering from the pounding and has started to split…..the nurse in me thinks this is very unhygenic,so its going into some bleach ( sorry folks I KNOW its not very green but I would rather be ungreen than [...]

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Strawberry liqueur

I am told Strawberry Liqueur is rather sweeter than the other fruit liqueurs, because strawberries are naturally a sweeter fruit. It is recommended  poured over pancakes, or over the sponge in a trifle, and if you take a galia melon, cut it in half, and fill the middles with strawberry liqueur and perhaps a little sugar, [...]

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Strawberry liqueur

 
I recently discovered some blackberry whisky I had forgotten about, it was great! It must have been a good 18 months old and had definitely improved with age. This has put me back onto a liqueur making phase, although it does get a bit expensive and I have to watch the units I am drinking because [...]

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