Page:Completeconfectioner Glasse 1800.djvu/303

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264
The Complete

and gently press it by degrees in a cyder-press, till the liquor is sufficiently drained out; provide a new cask, well seasoned, and aired with a lighted rag dipped in brimstone, till it becomes dry, pour the liquor in through a sieve funnel to stop the dregs, and let it stand with only a pebble stone lightly laid on the bung-hole to ferment, and refine itself, ten or twelve days; then draw it gently off into another cask, well seasoned, that the lees or dregs may remain in the first cask, and stop it no other way then before till it has quite passed over its ferment, which you may know by it coolness and pleasant taste, and thus of ordinary white grapes you may make a good sort of white wine; of the red grapes claret; and if it should want colour, heighten it with a little brazil, boiled in about a quart of it, and strained very clear. The white grapes not too ripe give a good rhenish taste,and are wonderfully cooling.

There is a sort of muscadel grapes, growing in many parts of England, which may be brought, by he help of a little loaf sugar to feed on, to produce a curious sweet wine, little differing from Canary, and altogether as wholesome and pleasant.

If the wine requires racking, the best time to do it is when the wind is in the north, and the weather temperate and clear; in the increase of the moon, and when she is underneath the earth, and not in her full height.

If the wine ropes, take a coarse linen cloth, and when you have set the cask a broach, set it before the bore, then put in the linen, and

rack