fennel wine?

[shell]

has anyone made fennel wine? the plant not the bulb type,i have a lot of fennel growing and i use the leaves for tea,i was wondering if i could make a wine from it or mix it with something else? the aniseed aroma would be great but how would it taste?

[1810ss]

Yes, and it was truly awful. I can look the recipe out for you, but I'd rather drink dirty dishwater. The aniseed like flavour was lost, and became a horrible solvent-like taste. I expected a kind of retsina taste, but was bitterly dissapointed- I threw it all away.
You can make a really good chutney with about 50% fennel stems/leaves, 25% onions and 25% apples (plus normal quatitites of sugar and vinegar and spices etc.)

[MKG]

In all cases of strong-tasting herbs, making a wine from them is a mistake. However, there is a way around this which the French and Italians have known about for a long time - hence vermouth. Make a white wine strong in alcohol but not in flavour. When that's finished fermenting, suspend a bag of the herbs in question in the wine. The alcohol leeches the herb flavour very efficiently. When the required flavour strength is achieved, take out the bag of herbs, leave the wine to mature a bit, and hey presto.

[shell]

yes well i think i will give it a miss and stick to making tea with it