Booze: River Cottage Handbook No.12

Description

'It's hard not to love John Wright ... This book is full of wit and wisdom - a delight for the fireside armchair' BBC Countryfile What could possibly beat a cool pint of beer down the pub or a lazy glass of wine at your favourite bar? The answer is: home-brewed beer or your very own brand of wine. With this, the twelfth in the River Cottage Handbook series, the inimitable John Wright shows exactly how easy it is to get started. You don't need masses of space to make alcohol at home, and if you follow the simple instructions, you won't be faced with exploding bottles in the cellar. But don't forget, it's all about experimentation and finding out what works for you. Booze is divided up by alcohol type, from beer, cider and wine to herbal spirits and fruit liqueurs. Each section starts with an introduction to the basic techniques, methods and other useful information, before giving recipes for delicious tipples like rhubarb wine, sparkling elderflower wine, mead, cherry plum wine, orange beer, lager, real ginger beer, sweet cider, zubrovka vodka, amber spirits, rose infusions, blackberry whiskey, pomegranate rum, chestnut liqueur, mulled cider and there's even a hangover cure thrown in for good measure. With an introduction from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and full-colour photographs as well as illustrations, Booze is a home-brewer's book with a kick and features a directory at the back of the book where you can find instructions on purchasing the best home-brewing kits.

John Wright is the author of the River Cottage Handbooks Mushrooms, Edible Seashore and Hedgerow. As well as writing for national publications, he often appears on the River Cottage series for Channel 4. He gives lectures on natural history and every year he takes around fifty 'forays' showing people how to collect food - plants from the hedgerow, seaweeds and shellfish from the shore and mushrooms from pasture and wood. Over a period of twenty years he has taken around five hundred such forays. Fungi are his greatest passion and he has thirty-five years' experience in studying them. John Wright is a member of the British Mycological Society and a Fellow of the Linnaean Society. He lives in rural West Dorset with his wife and two teenage daughters. http://www.wild-food.net/page/home

It's hard not to love John Wright. Self-effacing, amusing and as dry as one of his elderberry wines, he concentrates on the most important element of home-brewing: the fun. ... Even if you never make a bottle of nettle beer in your life, this book is full of wit and wisdom - a delight for the fireside armchair * BBC Countryfile * If you have yet to come across the River Cottage Handbooks, I can't recommend them enough * Rachel Khoo, Daily Mail *