THE COUNTESS OF NEWPORT’S CHERRY WINE

Pick the best Cherries free from rotten, and pick the stalk from them; put them into an earthen Pan.  Bruise them, by griping and straining them in your hands, and let them stand all night; on the next day strain them out (through a Napkin; which if it be a course and thin one, let the juyce run through a Hippocras or gelly bag, upon a pound of fine pure Sugar in powder, to every Gallon of juyce) and to every gallon put a pound of Sugar, and put it into a vessel.  Be sure your vessel be full, or your wine will be spoiled; you must let it stand a month before you bottle it; and in every bottle you must put a lump (a piece as big as a Nutmeg) of Sugar.  The vessel must not be stopt until it hath done working.

STRAWBERRY WINE

Bruise the Strawberries, and put them into a Linnen-bag which hath been a little used, that so the Liquor may run through more easily.  You hang in the bag at the bung into the vessel, before you do put in your Strawberries.  The quantity of the fruit is left to your discretion; for you will judge to be there enough of them, when the colour of the wine is high enough.  During the working, you leave the bung open.  The working being over, you stop your vessel.  Cherry-wine is made after the same fashion.  But it is a little more troublesome to break the Cherry-stones.  But it is necessary, that if your Cherries be of the black soure Cherries, you put to it a little Cinnamon, and a few Cloves.

TO MAKE WINE OF CHERRIES ALONE

Take one hundred pounds weight, or what quantity you please, of ripe, but sound, pure, dry and well gathered Cherries.  Bruise and mash them with your hands to press out all their juyce, which strain through a boulter cloth, into a deep narrow Woodden tub, and cover it close with clothes.  It will begin to work and ferment within three or four hours, and a thick foul scum will rise to the top.  Skim it off as it riseth to any good head, and presently cover it again.  Do this till no more great quantity of scum arise, which will be four or five times, or more.  And by this means the Liquor will become clear, all the gross muddy parts rising up in scum to the top.  When you find that the height of the working is past, and that it begins to go less, tun it into a barrel, letting it run again through a boulter, to keep out all the gross feculent substance.  If you should let it stay before you tun it up, till the working were too much deaded, the wine would prove dead.  Let it remain in the barrel close stopped, a month or five weeks.  Then draw it into bottles, into each of which put a lump of fine Sugar, before you draw the wine into it, and stop them very close, and set them in a cold Cellar.  You may drink them after three or four months.  This wine is exceeding pleasant, strong, spiritful and comfortable.