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Red, Red Wine

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  • Red, Red Wine



    In the 1940's sugar along with many other "things" had been rationed.

    Sugar needed for wine making was an issue. Dad always entertained with dances and wine
    during the heavy days after the depression. People flocked to the outbacks of Osage country
    to enjoy a night away from their fear filled days.

    Mother's large family of the Poncas at the time had no use for sugar so readily traded the sugar for our beef. Illegal? In a way but everyone was happy so no one complained. The Indians were happy and the "upper crust," too.

    Here's the recipe, not like the one Dad used to make in great barrels, but one you can easily do:

    Red Red Wine

    5 cups sugar
    3 quarts grape juice
    1 package cube yeast, like the bakery uses
    you can buy this is the refrigerated section
    1 large balloon
    1 gallon sized glass container with a small neck. I
    found some amber, antique clorox bottles but
    you can use clear glass. The videos for wine
    making show plastic but I stay away from plastic.
    Soda

    Wash bottles with soda and rinse well.
    Mix wine and sugar, yeast together. Pour into bottles
    Secure balloon to top.
    Set in a dark place where you will not forget to check
    on it. When balloon rises and then falls back down the
    wine is ready.

    Simple and easy.

    The Joneses were by no means rich in those days. Grandmother often served cornbread
    and milk for an evening meal. Of course, the cornbread was put in a sherbert dish (taken out
    of an oatmeal box) set on a lace doily she had croched. A tiny grasshopper sized glass of wine occasionally was beside the cornmeal and milk that is if we had been very good. How grown up we felt.

    Grandmother and Mother sewed our coats from the good parts of the adults cast off coats. So you see, dear reader, poverty is a mind game, and that is "How To Keep Up With the Joneses."

  • #2
    Re: Red, Red Wine

    I had some older neighbors many years ago, who gave me some sour cherries. They wanted me to make wine, which I did...just as you did above, with the gallon clear jug, & a large balloon (the kind that comes with a large rubber band, which you can blow up, & punch.) I really did like that wine, but if you drank a one-half an inch in a glass, you definitely felt the alcohol!! Joan

    Made elderberry wine with some dried elderberries, & it was so dry it tasted dusty. Not as popular.

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