To five gallons of ripe elderberries put ten gallons of water, boil them with the water for a quarter of an hour, then strain them through a hair-sieve, not pressing the berries; measure the liquor into the boiler again, to every gallon add three pounds and a half of sugar with the thin peels of six lemons; let it boil twenty minutes; when scalding hot beat up the white of four or five eggs and put them into it, stirring the liquor well about; when the liquor is sufficiently cooled to add the yeast on the top of a piece of toasted bread, add the juice of six lemons; when ready to be bunged up hang a gauze bag filled with bruised ginger in the middle of the cask.

Ginger in proportion of half a pound to ten gallons of wine.

Elder Wine With Cider

Bake the elderberries in a large stone jar well stopped down; to each quart of juice put three quarts of cider; to every gallon put two pounds of the best Lisbon sugar, four pounds of raisins stoned and chopped fine, two ounces of nutmegs ground, two ounces of cloves, two ounces of mace, and one ounce of cassia, all slightly bruised in a mortar, and two ounces of bitter almonds. Put all into a cask except the liquid which you must work in a tub. Put a slice of toasted bread and a large spoonful of yeast on it, let it work for one day and a night, then take off the scum, and put it also into the cask. When it ceases to hiss, put in half a pint of brandy to every gallon of liquor. If not made with very good strong cider, one pint of the best brandy will not be too much for each gallon. Stop it down close; let it remain in the cask two months, then bottle it. The longer it is kept, the better it becomes.

White Elder Wine

Boil eighteen pounds of white powdered sugar with six gallons of water, and two whites of eggs well beaten; then skim it, and put in a quarter of a peck of elder-flowers from the tree that bears white berries. Do not keep them on the fire. When near cold, stir it, and put in six spoonfuls of lemon juice, four or five of yeast, and beat well into the liquor, stir it every day. Put six pounds of the best raisins, stoned, into the cask, and tun the wine; stop it close, and bottle in six months. When well kept this wine will pass for Frontignac.

Dandelion Wine, Or Taraxacum

To one gallon of water put three quarts of dandelion blossoms, three pounds of raw sugar, two sweet oranges and two lemons.

Pour boiling water over the flowers the day they are gathered, and let them stand all night in a tub, but do not cover them over. Strain the liquor off next morning, and boil it with the sugar about half an hour. Pare the oranges and lemons very thin, then take off all the white, bruise them well, and put them into the liquor with the peels when milk warm, with half a teacupful of yeast; let it stand a week or ten days before putting it into the barrel. In three months bottle it and put two lumps of loaf sugar in each bottle.