Would you PM me the Brandy recipe? And I would also love how to make wine (or maybe moonshine) out of prickly pear fruit. On another tangent, both sides of my family are among the first German settlers, one side Fredericksburg, the other New Braunfels. Thanks!!Mustang grapes are... free range grapes.
Now going on a tangent. If you like jelly and preserves...
Mustang grapes make excellent homemade wine, as do prickly pear.Ye ha na lived til ye ha sampled prickly pear wine. I need pears so I can make my first batch. (Made lots of other wine, beer too, but not prickly pear.)
And it is just dumb how easy it is with a little bit of equipment. Fruit, water, yeast, some sort of fermenting vessel, airlock (old timers used a balloon), a large funnel, a sanitizing solution, a bottling bucket (is a nice option), and a little time and not much effort. Save all your screwtop glass and plastic bottles, booze bottles, 1L/2L/3L soft drink bottles. A beer siphon is best to go from vessel to bucket, but you can do just about anything you want as long as you sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. (BTW, I don't stomp my fruit, I use a sanitized blender.) I also have a recipe for brandy (undistilled) that has been handed down from original Texas German settlers. It ramps it up to about 40 proof, but it's not distilled, so no revenuers will be hunting for your still.
Here is a batch of Satsuma Orange wine I made for a coworker with his Satsumas. I use one of my 6.5 gallon beer jars (carboy). 4+ quarts of fruit, 14lbs of sugar, top it off with water - yields around 4 gallons of wine. 95% of my wine is given as gifts. I keep just enough for quality control.
Next on the wine list:
Prickly pear (if I can get any)
Jalapeno
Apricot
Mustang grapes (again; if I can get any)
Cranberry (again)
Previous wines I've made:
Black grape
Red grape
Cantaloupe
Cherry (should have made 20 gallons)
Dewberry
Hard pears
Mango (stunning)
Strawberry
Cranberry (my favorite)
Mustang grape (was a beautiful rose')
Mulberry
Satsuma orange
Blueberry
Fig (still aging)
And about 30 varieties of beer, most of which was given away.
Ok, I've diverted the thread long enough.
