We have completed about a third of the cellar wall project and we may have to continue with the rest of it next year. It has been a bit of a priority over the last couple of weeks to try and whip the garden into shape for the annual house party on August 24th. I took to the back lawn with the push mower on Sunday which resulted in several hours of sweating and cursing given the length of the grass. It also resulted in several hours of cooling off with a nice cool beer in the shade afterwards. If the grass doesn’t die from the toxic over load of my sweat falling like rain all over it, it should be looking good for the party.
The fruit trees have absolutely thrived with the high humidity of late and as such we are seeing the branches of the plum trees sagging under the weight of fruit. One of the plum types is a mirabelle, which is particularly favoured in the making of schnapps given that it has such a potent floral aroma. The downside of this fruit is that when mature it is only the size of a table grape and the juice yield is not fantastic, as such it takes a great many kilos to make the required size mash for distilling.
The regular purple plums on the other hand are also in abundance and aside from our bulging tree we are to be given the produce from Alfred’s monster grand daddy plum tree in his garden at Heppenheim. Thomas is due to collect the first station wagon load this week.
Looks as if the schnapps production factory is about to rock and roll, lordy, lordy, hallelujah brother and pass the jug.
Production through the distillery is quite an expensive process with the government taxes etc all being based on alcohol percentage. A good 50 litre batch will cost around 600 euros. Luckily we already have 3 partners lined up to share the costs. Each group should end up with about 25 litres for their share. We may do a second one if we can find enough of some other fruit for free. Possibly apples but more hopefully quinces. Quinces once again have very little juice and hence you end up having to buy a lot of additional juice to make a mash. It can be quite an expensive item to purchase additional quince juice. Having been in a position to sample 8 and 11 year old quince from Thomas’s cellar I can only say....money well spent. It is absolutely fantastic and without a doubt one of the most aromatic and smooth digestives I have ever sampled. Brilliant stuff and like way, way potent. His eleven year old is approx 47% by volume. Nice little night cap if I do say so myself.
We planted a hop vine some 4 months ago beside the outside spiral staircase. It is now up to the second story on the stair railings and zooming ever skyward. Our only concern at this point is whether or not it is a female. It has not shown its true colours yet so I guess we just have to wait. If it is female we should get enough flowers to make quite a few batches of beer. Fingers crossed. Maybe if we water it with beer it might get the general idea of what its true purpose in life is. Before you ask, the answer is yes, it is legal to grow hops here in Germany unlike Australia where I think it is a standing fine of $20,000 for unlicensed hop plants.
Beer brewing is a national birth right over here. I’ll drink to that!
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