This is an early 18^th century recipe from the house of the
Hamiltons of Dalziel, Motherwell, Scotland.

To make the best Raisin Wine

First things necessary are patience, perseverance, good materials, & proper utensils.

For Madeira wine use Smyrna raisins alone.

For Lisbon, half Smyrna & half Malaga.

For Spanish - Malaga raisins alone.

For the Madeira must use an empty Red wine hog.

For Lisbon & Malaga, a White wine hog.

A proper press with hairbags is likewise necessary, tho’ may make a (shift?) without them,

Take out one of the heads of the cask & set it up on one end upon a (seatling ?) a foot high, shut up the bung hole & open another for a cock two inches from the bottom of the cask, & put an iron or lead plate with holes on the inside to keep the stones of the raisins from coming through while it is presst.

Being thus prepared put in your fruit 7lb to an English gallon of soft water & stir it very well with mashing stick twice or thrice a day till your fruit rises & swims atop of the water, when it must be carefully watched, & as soon as it begins to subside, put in your cock & let it run off as far as it will run, then one or two people get into it barefooted & trample the fruit and squeeze it between their hands till all the juice is out, which I never do too dry - because I make fine Cyder of it afterward by throwing about 2 part of the water or 1 according to the moisture or dryness of the fruit, of the quantity that was put in at first.

The wine which is first taken off must be put into a cask that it will fill, & you must have some over in a large bottle to fill it up with for the first three or four days that it begins to work to throw of (sic) all sort of filth, then let it ferment downward to preserve the lees on which the wine is to feed, & so let it stand till it grows fine of itself in 4 or 6 months, & so draw it off into a fresh cask & after settling bottle it, but if it is not candle fine it must be forct with ising glass before you do bottle it to have it perfectly good.

So much for the wine now for the Cyder just let the water stand on your squeezed raisins a fourthnight or 3 weeks according to the heat of the weather or squeeze it out & cask it up as you did the wine & it will be fit for use in 3 months no matter if not very fine when it is bottled but for this last operation there should be a press that none of the substance may be left & if it does not prove good Cyder it will always make good vinegar but that’s a process which requires more utensils & greater preparation to make it good, but all the French vinegar we have is nothing else.

Suppose your fruit costs 30s the hundred, One hundredweight will make 16 gallons of good wine which is 64 bottles not 6d the bottle besides your Cyder, & to a hundred weight which is 112 lbs. Averdupois may always put 18 galls of water to allow two for waste

There are many delicious wines to be made with gooseberrys & currens mixt the raisins but it requires a masters hand or much teaching to do it well

Be sure to use none but the good sound fruit for bad raisins will never make good wine – no more than bad flower (sic) good bread.

Printed as it was written

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