Cheap 'N Easy Wine

Enlarge Image Image Gallery

In the DEAR MOTHER section of TMEN NO. 3, Gary Dunford asked if it's possible to make wine at home without buying $40 worth of equipment. The answer is yes.

I started making wine with stuff I could scrounge while living in a one room apartment in the city. Following are my own Super Simple directions. They're guaranteed to drive dedicated winemakers up a wall but they do produce results. Anyway, they're a beginning and beginnings are the most important part.

You can make wine out of almost any fruit. In fact, you can make it from just about anything that grows. I have used grapes, pears, peaches, plums, blackberries, strawberries, cherries and—my favorite—honey. Honey wine is called Mead. The so-called wine of the gods. It's cheap, easy and good. Here's how:

Get a gallon jug, preferably glass but plastic will do. Clean it out good. Smell it. Someone may have kept gasoline in it. Wash the jug with soap (NOT detergent), rinse with baking soda in water and—finally—rinse with clear water.

Put a pint and a half to two pints of honey in the jug (the more honey, the stronger the wine), fill with warm water and shake.

Add a pack or cake of yeast—the same stuff you use for bread—and leave the jug uncapped and sitting in a sink overnight. It will foam at the mouth and the whole thing gets pretty sticky at this point.