To Make Currant Or Goosebery Wine

This recipe hails from the English domestic tradition of the 18th century, when country housewives and gentlewomen made a variety of fruit wines from the summer garden bounty. Elizabeth Smith, whose manuscript this comes from, lived in a time when imported grape wine was costly, so making wines from gooseberries, currants, and even cowslips was both thrifty and fashionable. Such recipes were often passed down or shared among the gentry and aspiring middle classes, reflecting both the resourcefulness and social ambitions of their makers. Wine-making at home carried an air of industrious gentility, with pride invested in clarity, sweetness, and the delicate herbal perfumes added by ingredients like balm.

Historically, the process would require a large wooden tub for bruising or crushing the fruit (possibly with a wooden pestle), linen or hair sieves for straining the juice, and strong cheesecloth or "hair bags" especially for pressing gooseberries. A basic wooden or metal fruit press might be used. Fermentation occurred in barrels or large earthenware jugs, sealed with cloth and wax or a wooden bung. Bottles were corked and sometimes waxed over. Today, a clean plastic or glass fermentation bucket, potato masher, nylon straining bag, plastic sieve, glass demijohns, fermentation airlock, and sanitized bottles and corks (or swing-tops) make the process much cleaner and safer.