Homemade Persimmon Honey Wine

This is not wine from a kit. There are no commercial yeasts involved. No artificial flavours or chemical preservatives.

I never thought I’d make wine, but once you make ginger beer and start exploring Sandor Katz’s fermentation bible, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, it’s hard hard to stop brewing. It’s also fun to pass on that addiction, and when you tell a friend that you made persimmon honey wine and ginger beer, and it happens to be his birthday, and he says that what he’d like to do on his birthday is to also make persimmon honey wine and ginger…well, you make wine and beer!

I was first inspired to make Katz’s recipe for Persimmon Honey Wine when I saw the boxes of persimmons at Jean Talon Market in December. It’s actually a Cyser, he says, not a mead or a traditional grape-based wine. That’s because of the apple cider and honey involved, I believe, and probably also the process. It’s not that complicated. Combine fruit with honey and unpasteurized apple juice and let it sit for awhile. Then strain out the fruit and let it sit longer. Strain, refrigerate, drink.

Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s mostly about observation. Whether you strain on day 3 or 4, whether your room is at 10 degrees or 20 degrees, whether you have some funky wild yeasts already in the air because you just made ginger beer or sauerkraut…all these things make subtle differences in your end product. I even used three different fermentation containers (a wide mouth 1-L mason jar, a ceramic bowl and the plastic apple cider 2-L container, and each result was different.

I also used two different types of persimmons – the soft and sugary hachiyas and the firmer, more apple-like, more vanilla but slightly less sweet fuyus. Katz didn’t specify which ones to use. They really are under-appreciated fruit. And when in season, they’re bountiful. I usually shuck the flesh out of the hachiyas once they’re almost falling apart on themselves, freeze it in large containers, and then scrape them like granita for dessert. No added sugar necessary.

The other ingredient that makes a difference is the honey. You need raw, unpasteurized honey. So, nothing that comes in a bear, okay? I had an assortment of local honeys but ended up picking up a wildflower honey at Jean Talon. I wanted as neutral a flavour as possible (boy I love blueberry flower honey), so the wine would taste more like persimmons than honey. But next time, I’ll experiment with stronger flavoured buckwheat or blueberry honeys.

The results? One batch got really dry, as all the sugars in the cider and honey and fruit turned into alcohol. Another batch got sparkly! It stayed semi-sweet. I could have let it keep fermenting, which probably would have dried it out, but I like sparkling sweet cider! And another batch smelled like mushrooms! It didn’t taste like mushrooms, though, so I kept it. Now the “mother,” the lees of the fruit that I couldn’t sieve out (not even through a double layer of cheese cloth), turned the remnants to vinegar, so I’m using it in salad dressings and marinades. Caribbean chicken? You bet! Who needs papaya? (Actually, me…)

For the full recipe, pick up Wild Fermentation. It’s worth it. And happy experimenting. If you want a taste of my batches and you’re in the Montreal area, let me know. I love trades!