A tale of my own efforts.
"We used to call it 'piss-a-bed' wine."
— overheard at a Winemakers Club meeting
Yes, I used to be a winemaker. I used to make wine in England, an unusual hobby for a country not known for its viticulture, unlike almost all our continental neighbours. It's not well known that Britain did have a winemaking culture beyond the brewing of barley wine; for many, many years there had been a tradition of making "country wine". Absent a climate suited for growing good grapes (although the Romans had tried, and in the warmer climes of the Southwest they still did), canny locals fell back on using the ingredients they had to hand. So fruits like apples, blackberries, pears and even rosehips. If they were in short supply there were some seemingly odd fallbacks. I've seen recipes for rhubarb, parsnip and yes, dandelion.
I only made dandelion wine once. The traditional recipe I had called for the flowers to be picked on Saint George's Day, so I did that. It was {thankfully) a warm, sunny day and I did just as Pretzellogic mentioned above and picked them at midday. I picked a whole bucket of them, took them indoors, cleaned them up and followed the recipe (which included apples and orange zest). I set the whole two gallons fermenting, and when it was finished, I racked it off into bottles and set them aside.
Finally (around Christmastime) I decided to open one. Wary of the dandelion's reputation as a diuretic I took only a small glass. It was a beautiful pale wine, clear as anyone could wish for and I was quite excited. It smelled faintly floral and I was even more excited. Then I took a sip. Now Pretzellogic says that one needn't be too anal about removing the green. That is not correct and I should have removed every trace. it was initially quite pleasant. The first sip was delightful, but as I rolled it over my tongue I could get that hint of chicory-bitterness. I swallowed. The bitter taste persisted. I took another sip and the sensation was amplified, coupled with an astringency that hammered the bitterness home. What had I done wrong? I returned to my winemaker's bible and scoured the method for any hint or clue as to what had gone so horribly wrong. My error was clear, I should have excised every trace of greenery.
Even so, I thought, maybe if I lay it down for a while longer it will disappear. Perhaps it needs more time to mature and possibly improve. So I waited and I waited for the local winemakers club to meet for its next tasting at which point I thought I'd get others' opinions as to what to do better next time. I dutifully took a bottle to the meeting and after it was opened and sampled, the consensus was clear. Under no circumstances should anyone make this blasted brew again. It was cursed, it seems. Apparently many made tried, but only two had produced anything even approaching being drinkable, and it's a lesson that everyone seems to have to learn.
Still, it did clean the drains.
Thanks, Cyril Berry for misleading us all.
Iron node 19
$ xclip -o | wc -w
539