I love ginger- the pungent, peppery, tangy taste. It occupies a place of pride in my kitchen and finds its way in almost everything - from tea to Tabbouleh.
Of late, I've been experimenting with the art of making homemade wines and have had successful attempts with grapes and dates. Eyeing some freshly bought ginger, I felt adventurous and considered exploring the possibility of wine.
I browsed through a few recipes online and zeroed in on one from thewingedfork – it was simple and more importantly, I had all the listed ingredients at hand.
Day One: The bharani (ceramic jar) when filled with all the ingredients looked colourful and interesting. It was covered and kept aside for fermenting on the dining table. There was a lot of happy conversation happening within the bharani that we were privy to through lunch and dinner. I had to wait and watch for the outcome of the bubbling whisperings. If they all agreed, I would get a tasty pour or else it would be 4 litres of intoxicating drench for the garden.
Day Two: Some of the liquid was oozing out from around the covering so, a brisk stirring was needed before it was secured again. By now the conversations had reduced. The ingredients were entering a state of lethargic stupor.
Day Five: Having misread the days of fermenting required (sorry, thewingedfork), I opened the bharani. There was some fizzing protest but, in my haste, I ignored it. The wine was strained using a muslin cloth and the cloudy liquid bottled up. The thought process being, the liquid would clear within a day or two.
Day Five (Part 2): A gunshot! Luke barked an alert and I ran to check the scene of a possible crime. The table runner was gaining a worrying stain and the chandelier was swinging ominously. One of the corks from the bottled wine had popped and hit the roof, literally.
I spied that all the corks were in different stages of cannoning. The bottles were promptly emptied back into the bharani, tied up and the wine imprisoned for the dissent to subside.
Day Eleven: The bharani was gingerly opened and a clear, delicate smelling wine greeted my senses. The confinement had transformed the rebel. So, it wasn’t a bad experiment after all. Maybe if I'd followed the recipe religiously, the wine would have turned out different but, that is something I will wait to discover another day.
As for now, I'm happy with my glass of home-brewed ginger wine and Ghulam Ali for company ‘Hungama hai kyun barpa …thodi si jo pee li hai” …
bliss.
留言