Well, it took a week, and it wasn’t nearly as ‘labor intensive’ as the maple syrup, but I finally finished the dandelion wine making process. Here are my first impressions:

• Making wine takes time. You spend most of that time watching and waiting and letting things soak and stew and ferment. All you can do is make sure you’ve read the directions correctly and are doing each of the steps completely.

• Some of the steps that you undertake on a given day can take hours to complete. For example, Step 8 (see below) says to cook the strained liquid for 30-60 minutes with sugar and rinds. There’s an hour or so right there. Step 10 (see below) says to let the heated liquid cool to blood temperature (~ 98-100-degrees). There’s another hour or so. Do not put off certain steps until 8:00-9:00 pm and think you’re going to be in bed an hour. Because you won’t.

• Be prepared for the smell. As I was performing Step 8, cooking the strained liquid with sugar and rinds, I literally woke up my wife at 11:30 pm with the stench! Legit. Out of no where, I hear this barked order, “Turn on the fan! Open a window!”

• 5 quarts of water, after being boiled twice, reduces in volume to about 3 1/2 -4 Q so I didn’t get six bottles of wine, but rather four.

• If I had it to do over again, I would a.) use a bigger funnel, and b.) not use coffee filters to strain the final product as I was bottling. In the end, I couldn’t do anything about the funnel as it was the only one I had. However, once I sacrificed some more of my thin t-shirt to strain the liquid as I was bottling, things went a lot smoother and faster.

Here’s a complete video of the process:

And here’s the complete recipe I undertook as documented in my non-fiction book Home Remedies, Poultice, Salves & Tinctures:

Dandelion Wine

Treatments:

Liver function and maintenance.

Ingredients:

• 3-5 Q Dandelion Blossoms

• 5 Q Water

• 3 lbs Sugar

• 1 Orange + rind from avg sized orange (organic only, omit if not)

• 1 Lemon + rind from avg sized lemon (organic only, omit if not)

• 1 pkg (8 g) live yeast

• Whole Wheat Bread

Instructions:

1. Find a field of dandelions in bloom. (Hint: follow the bees).

2. Pick dandelions with a sweeping motion of your parted fingers, like a comb (leave green sepals, discard stalks).

3. Put the blossoms immediately into a large crock-pot/glass mixing bowl/plastic container.

4. Boil the water and then pour it over flowers.

5. Cover your crock/bowl/container with cheesecloth.

6. Stir daily for three days.

7. On the fourth day, strain blossoms from liquid.

8. Cook strained liquid with sugar and rinds for 30-60 minutes.

9. Return the cooked liquid to the crock/bowl/container and add citrus juice.

10. When liquid has cooled to blood temperature, soften yeast, spread on toast, and float toast in crock/bowl/container.

11. Cover and let the yeast work for two days.

12. After two days, strain the liquid again.

13. Return strained liquid to the crock/bowl/container for one day and allow it to settle again.

14. Filter into very clean bottles and cork lightly.

15. Don't drink until winter solstice.

Notes:

A week of work yields a drink that’s good for your liver, as well.