Esther Copley’s 1827 Recipe for ‘Gooseberry Wine in Imitation of Champaign’

“To every three pounds of ripe gooseberries put a pint of spring water unboiled; first bruise your fruit with your your hands in a tub, and then put the water to them, stir them very well, and let them stand a whole day, and then strain them off, and to every pound of gooseberries add a pint of water, a pound of sugar dissolved, and let it stand twenty four hours more, then scum the head clear off, and put the liquor into a vessel, and the scum into a flannel bag, and what drains from it put into the vessel ; you must let it work two or three days before you stop it up, and if it be not clear when you draw it into bottles, let it stand in the bottles some time, then rack it into other bottles. When you draw it out of the cask, do not tap it too low.

Several other recipes might be given but it would be needlessly swelling the book, as the proportions and management are substantially the same. Experience and fancy will dictate any agreeable or advantageous varieties.”

Esther Copley, The New London Cookery and Complete Domestic Guide (1827)

Here’s another gooseberry recipe from Esther Copley’s 1827 treatise on kitchen management. This time it’s for a fruity tipple, one that I reckon would go quite nicely with her batter-based gooseberry pudding.

Making fruit wines seems to have become something of a niche hobby these days, but for a great many households of earlier centuries it would have been an essential means of providing a selection of tasty beverages to add variety and flavour to the family dining table, and of using up surplus fruit.

Esther’s method for turning gooseberries into wine clearly relies on the presence of natural yeasts on the fruit, a process known as wild fermentation. Aside from straining the soaked fruit and sugar mix, and then skimming any scum from the surface, there’s really not much to do but bottle the juice, wait for the alcohol to develop, and then enjoy the – presumably effervescent, if it’s imitating “Champaign” – gooseberry wine.

Do you make fruit wines? Have you tried a gooseberry version? What modern kit and method would you recommend, rather than just leaving things to chance and the elements? Do let me know, via the comments.