According to my blog archives, a year ago, almost to the day, we (Ernst) began making plum brandy for the first time. And according to the blog posts, I was really sick with some sort of summer cold/flu thing. I don't remember that at all, but I do remember the booze making process. It's stained into my consciousness. But unlike last year's plum harvest of "bottling up the whines" I know what to expect this time.
- A very neat and tidy process that Ernst administers like a grand science experiment, with beakers and bottles and vats and bubbling concoctions of purple glop. It's interesting, and I hardly have to lift a finger.
- A dog who likes her liquor. She got into the orange cider this winter twice, with burps and hiccups to prove it. We must keep lids on the brew, not to keep the pests out but to keep the pet out.
- Floor space taken up with plastic buckets and big glass bottles that make noise from air bubble contraptions on top. Making booze is noisy business - the stuff is alive.
- The results are homemade alcohol, lots of it. Our Moldovan friends proclaimed our plum brandy (pronounced tsooeeka in Romanian) a success. They poured it into a metal spoon, lit it on fire and oohed and aahed over the color of the flame. I just know it felt like liquid fire going down and had a very high alcohol content. The plums have power.
Here we go again, our plum harvest is in full swing. There is even enough extra plum juice to make some jelly. If you stop by, prepare to be offered something purple, it may or may not make you burp and hiccup.
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| The plum tree is loaded this year. We are in a war with the squirrels. We intend to win. |
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| Our sour plum tree is producing sweeter plums this year than the regular plum tree. It's so confusing, we hardly can keep them straight. |
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| Large stainless steel vats are taking over the house. We need to create a booze making storage area in the garage. Soon. |
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| Plum is the new black. |
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| He is "super proofing" this, or something like that. I don't have my terminology down. He said don't drink it. Oh, I won't. |
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| I again bring up the garage storage area that's needed. Sooner. |
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| After we bottle it, we wait. Plum brandy cannot be rushed. |
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| Will it turn out? Will the Moldovans approve? Will the dog deem it burp-worthy? We shall țee. |
