First of the Summer Wine
As a herbalist, this is an exciting time of the year. The Nettles are green and furry and fresh, the raspy Cleavers abundant, Plantain is new and tender, Elderflowers are and Hawthorn buds are forming, Coltsfoot is up, Dandelions are everywhere; Goutweed, Pilewort, Whitlow Grass, Hedge Garlic, Tri-Corner Leek, Wild Garlic, and Yarrow, are all to be found in profusion. Come real spring and early summer, there is lots for a medicine maker to do.
Just such an opportunity presented itself the other day when I took my toddler for a walk. We live near some great green spaces where the wild herbs grow, and I showed him the best way to pick nettles - with a pair of washing up gloves and a scissor, and we tasted the herbs of the season. As we walked and talked and picked, all the tasks that a plant person (with unlimited time!) might want to to this time of the year occurred to me. Spring is the time to pick nettles and collect traditional spring tonics like dandelion leaves, plantain, cleavers, chickweed, and white dead nettle. Spring is finally, seemingly grudgingly, upon us. The wild herbs are up. The flowers are coming out.
With all the wonderful foraging available this time of year one’s thoughts naturally turn to wine. Medicinal, of course. Country wine, made with herbs, fruits, spices and vegetables, as opposed to grapes, is a venerable product: easy to make, often quite nice to drink, and something that keeps one in touch with the seasons and ancient natural rhythms, all of which are easy to forget in our increasingly virtual world.
As medicines, wines are excellent. For a start, people like to drink them, which is always a plus with medicine. Most country wines are made by brewing a very strong tea of some flower, herb, vegetable or fruit, adding sugar and yeast, and then standing back while it does its thing. You can faff with the process, tinker and tweak, but basically that is it. So, because they are essentially infusions - very strong ones - country wines carry considerable medicinal benefits, even in small quantities. And they are quite fun and satisfying to create, make impressive gifts, and are quite economical.
What to use? You can make wine from virtually anything. Primroses are an old favourite - although with the sad decline in wild primroses it is best to use planted ones; dandelion flowers are also traditional. Dandelions reportedly make lovely light wine, and the flowers are good for the kidneys and bladder, and tend to impart a sunny mood. You can make wine from violets (be sure to remove the green parts of the flowers or it tastes mostly of grass), which have a beneficial effect on the lungs and movement of lymphatic fluid through the body. You can use roses (reportedly heavenly), which raise the spirits like nothing else. These two were called Violatium and Rosatium, respectively, in Ancient Rome, where they were drunk for festivals. Other excellent vintning choices include: hawthorn flowers (delicious!),which gently regulate blood pressure, improve heart function, and strengthen the vasculature; and elderflowers (delicious white wine), which are good for hayfever in summer and colds & flus in the colder months. Herbs like mint, lemonbalm, and even nettles, can be used either on their own or as part of seasonal wines made from a mixture of garden herbs and flowers. As the year moves on gooseberries, rhubarb, cherries (if you can get them!), plums, damsons, strawberries, raspberries, brambles, elderberries, rowan, even apples and crabapples, can be used to make wine.
Spices as well as herbs may be added to boost flavour and health properties. Ginger is particularly good for wines drunk in winter, and cinnamon, juniper berries (foraged or not!), cloves, nutmeg, and just about anything else in the spice cupboard, can be used to make things festive and warming.
You can also make vegetable wine. Peapod wine is a great way to get the goodness out of discarded pods, and though perhaps a throwback to a more frugal age, it makes the absolute most of a homegrown crop. Other health giving vegetables that make lovely wines include carrots, parsnips, and beetroot. Incidentally, these are the very same vegetables that can become a trifle tedious in the winter veg box, and may hang around for some time before finding their way into the soup pot or compost bin.
And if you find yourself in the fermenting mood, there are other interesting traditional beverages to make, like Nettle Beer. The following recipe is taken from Maud Grieve’s 1930s opus A Modern Herbal:
2 lemons
A handful of fresh nettle tops
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 lb brown sugar
1 gallon water
Take a quantity of young, fresh nettle tops and boil in 1 gallon of water, with the juice of the two lemons crushed ginger, and sugar. Fresh yeast is floated on toast in the liquor, when cold, to ferment it, and when it is bottled, the result is a specially wholesome sort of ginger-beer.
Once upon a time every family made nettle beer, dandelion & burdock, ginger beer, and many other herbal brews. These potions served as health tonics and home remedies, using the most of foraged and home grown plants, and -by virtue of the boiling required to make them - rendered the water safe for drinking. The yeasts that gently fermented also added B vitamins and a measure of healthful probiotics to the drinks. These wonderful beverages are far tastier than the sugar-packed fizzies of modern times, and far healthier too. They are easy to make and can be drunk within a few days; children love making and consuming them. And if you enjoy making or drinking kombucha, kefir, kvass, or other traditional ferments, these traditional British herbal brews can be combined to make exciting new things. And it’s all medicinal.
For more information on making your own medicinal wines, have a look at books by C.J.J. Berry, join some home brew or wine making Facebook groups, or wander into your local brew shop and get chatting. If you live in Edinburgh, Newington’s BrewStore is the place.
Let me know how your nettle beer turns out!