1863 The manufacture of liquors, wines, and cordials

MANUFACTURE OF WINES.

211

sugar, are added to the ferment all for the same purpose that of imparting a vinous taste and smell to the liquid. The raisins possess the power to the greatest extent ; before use they should be well bruised or mashed, the better to enable the fluid to act on them. A good imitation of wines can be made from fer- menting raisins ; the taste and smell that they yield it would be difficult to obtain elsewhere, other than the wine itself. Tannin is used in the form of catechu for rough- ening wines ; alkali for correcting wines, and form- ing dry wines, in which neither acid nor sweetness predominates. The odor is derived from essential oils, heavy oil of wine, raisin spirit, butyric and acetic ether, spirit of prunes, and Jamaica rum. The coloring is derived from burnt white sugar, cochineal, red beets, English saffron, and gamboge. In Europe, and some parts of the United States, manufacturers ferment turnips with radishes, white sugar beets, currants, gooseberries, &c., &c. These articles can be dispensed with, as they are not al- ways convenient or in season and thus the manufac- turer has been compelled to find substitutes, which has been done at a more economical cost. | The customary formula for using beets and tur-

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker