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I'm really getting into the homemade wine lark

I've got a batch of dandelion and burdock going currently and decided I fancied doing a tea wine. Stupid me hadn't previously thought of using flavoured rather than standard tea, well, I have some amazing Licorice and Spearmint t bags I fancy using!

How do you think it'll turn out?

This made me think I'd love to know what the most unusual wine you've ever made/ drank is?

Thanks guys

my friend made banana wine but it smelt like paint stripper and went down the loo

I haven't made these myself but my parents were keen winemakers in their time and produced many wonderful brews (and some stinkers too).

Banana was actually a reliable staple - nice flavour, not really banana-ey but deceptively strong.
Beetroot
Wheat
Parsnip
Pea-pod
Tomato (actually worse than it sounds)
Rice and raisin (I think)

As well as the usual fruits/berries.

There are probably more that I can't remember at the moment - my dad was keen to try unusual things, I remember he grew a japanese wineberry, which is related to brambles and raspberries, but I don't think it ever produced enough fruit for a gallon.

Plotter wrote:I remember he grew a japanese wineberry, which is related to brambles and raspberries, but I don't think it ever produced enough fruit for a gallon.

these are lovely to eat fresh but have very little flavour - just acidity and sweetness - wine made from them would be very 'delicate' i suspect - much better to eat fresh with whipped cream and couantrau

Licquorice and Spearmint, eh? Well, you never know until you try, and what would it cost for the experience? Very little.

There are licquoricey (anise) flavoured drinks, but I think they're all sweet. There are mint drinks, too, but I think they're all sweet. There may be a lesson in that.

Don't forget that a "failure" doesn't necessarily mean chuck it away. You're going to have failures in the opposite direction, too, and wine blending is another skill which whiles away a few happy hours. An over-acidic wine and an insipid wine, when blended, often produces a very acceptable result. Sickly sweet and mouth-furringly dry is another good combination.

Get in there and try it - you may end up with a winner.

Mike

Well the Licorice and spearmint wine is on
Smells fine so far...but then it would

I'll let you know how it goes
I've found recipes for spearmint wine since and someone else mentioning Licorice, but not if they ever attempted it!!!

Lets wait and see.....

Kohl-Rabi wine

an interestingly-shaped but disgusting vegetable !

so (many years ago) we made wine with it. It smelt the same (disgusting) but tasted quite OK.
A milestone in my personal history, never to be repeated.

We experimented with fruit vodkas. We made kiwi fruit vodka - it smelled like sick!

When I married my first husband in 1971 there was some wedding cake left, so my brother made wine from that.

It sounded odd at the time, but logical really as it contained so much fruit. I had made the cake myself. The wine was delicious.

Maggie

I think the strangest wine I ever made was a bramble-tip wine. It ended up clear as water - it looked like water - and tasted ... well ... odd. It took me ages to work out that it tasted like sherry and it was the colour (or lack of it) which was the culprit. Water, of course, shouldn't taste like sherry. Once the realisation had been made, it tasted perfectly OK. Isn't the human mind odd?

Mike

Orange blossom wine! We've got around 90 trees, so ideal and delicious!

I first started making my own wine about 8 years ago, then stopped for a while, and have now started again. When I first started I did:
a mint wine which was h-hOrrible
a cucumber wine which was dIsgUsting
and a coffee wine which was revOlting (used far too much coffee)
and a prune wine which was nice and tasted a bit like brandy but turned out to be an extremely good cure for constipation. I found that out when I didn't have constipation

The only successes back in those days were the ones I made out of cartons of grape juice and apple juice. But then I got careless and they started going wrong. At that point, I gave up making wine for a couple of years. Then, about 2 years ago we started making it from a kit and were pretty impressed. This summer we've been busily making it from scratch again, but using home-grown fruit (black- and red-currants, elderberries, gooseberries, rhubarb, etc.). We've yet to try any of it, so fingers crossed.

Oh, I did once make a gallon of pineapple wine using tinned pineapple. It tasted nice, but while it was brewing it smelled like vomit (literally). Not pleasant, especially when you consider we brewed it in the airing cupboard which is in our bedroom.

a prune wine which was nice and tasted a bit like brandy but turned out to be an extremely good cure for constipation. I found that out when I didn't have constipation

Oh thanks for that, I've not laughed so much in weeks

Ive made banana wine and found it to be very strong and very dry.

Ive now ventured into Japanese knotweed wine.
Its free and in an effort to destroy this noxious weed I think everyone should get Demijohns out.
Amazingly its a very health aiding plant and is also slightly antibiotic.
In Japan they make tea out of the leaves. It contains the same stuff that red grape skins do and is highly antioxident.

Out of boredom really I have tried strange ingredients and often been very surprised.
Barley ( horse and chicken feed ) with potato skins gave us two gallons of very nearly a German wine.

Oooo

These sound interesting

How did you know that Japanese knotweed would be ok?
What else did you make....i love an experiement

Licorice and spearmint update, it's bright yellow , clear as a bell and very tasty so far, its not too strong a flavour (not ready yet but i really must keep checking it for info purposes of course lol) dandelion and burdock still tastes like D&B but incredibly sweet/ slightly alcoholic, think i'll be in for a long wait