By SJ
Otto
Several
years ago I entered a bottle of oak leaf mead to a brew fair contest and it won
best of show as well as best mead. I rarely win such honors so I was amazed to
hear that I won.
As it
turns out those tree leaves in folk's yard, if they have oak trees, make a
really great wine. I got the recipe out of a book on Druidry, The 21 Lessons of
Merlyn by Douglas Monroe.[1]
It
turns out that Monroe
To
begin with fill a pail with oak leaves, fresh off of a tree is preferred. Ad
one handful of rose buds and one handful of chamomile.
Next
put 10 cups of water in a large crock pot. Bring to a boil and then pour the
boiling water on the leaves. Cover them, with a cloth, and let them steep for
12 hours.
After
the 12 hours, strain the liquid over cheese cloth or something like it. Next
get the crock pot back out and put in 10 more cups of water. Ad 6 cups of
honey. Then bring to a boil. Now poor the leaf liquid in the crock pot. Let the
mixture cool and when it is room temperature, ad some yeast. To get the most
alcohol out of the mixture ad some Champagne yeast. It has a high tolerance to
alcohol and will allow the alcohol level to get real high. Put a lid over the
crock pot so the alcohol does not escape. A fermentation lock may be used after
the mixture is poured into a gallon jug if the brewer prefers that method.
Otherwise just let the mixture ferment until it has enough alcohol to be a
wine. That usually takes two to three weeks.
Then
use a siphon hose to bottle the mixture into wine bottles. The wine can be aged
if the brewer wants to make sure it is the best it can be- maybe a year. Or if
it taste OK just poor a class and drink! It has a rich dark taste.
[1] Douglas Monroe, The 21 Lessons of Merlyn, (Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minnesota), 1993, p. 339.
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