Vintage Recipe – British Champagne, 1855

The EU referendum campaign is hotting up ahead of the vote next week. I am a Remainer, very definitely, with a side order of “Oh crap….I think we’re actually going to leave.”

So here’s my generous offering to the Brexiteers – some appropriate booze for Farage, Gove and our new gurning overlord, Boris Johnson, to get their gruesome mugs around, should the country vote leave next Thursday. British Champagne from 1855, the days of the Empire, and made from gooseberries – appropriately enough for a country that wants to turn itself into an international gooseberry.

British Champagne

Take gooseberries before they are ripe, crush them in a wooden bowl with a mallet, and to every gallon of fruit put a gallon of water; let it stand two days, stirring it well; squeeze the mixture well with the hands through a hop-sieve, then measure the liquor, and to every gallon put three pounds of load sugar; mix it well in the tub, and let it stand one day; put bottle of the best brandy into the cask, which leave open five or six weeks, taking off the scum as it rises; then close it up, and let it stand one year in the barrel before it is bottled.