Here is an article I wrote for the AEstel (AEelmearc's newsletter).
The following is a cherry wine that is very nice when heated. Just the thing for cold, winter nights. This recipe comes from Kenelm Digby.
MORELLO WINE p97
To half an Aume of white wine, take twenty pounds of Morello Cherries, the stalks being first plucked off. Bruise the Cherries and break the stones. Pour into the Wine the juyce that comes out from the Cherries; but put all the solid substance of them into a long bag of boulter-cloth, and hang it in the Wine at the bung, so that it lie not in the bottom, but only reach to touch it, and therefore nail it down at the mouth of the bung. Then stop it close. For variety, you may put some clear juyce of Cherries alone (but drawn from a larger proportion of Cherries) into another parcel of Wine. To either of them, if you will Aromatise the drink, take to this quantity two Ounces of Cinnamon grosly broken and bruised, and put it in a little bag at the spiggot, that all the wine you draw may run through the Cinnamon.
You must be careful in bruising the Cherries, and breaking the stones. For if you do all at once, the Liquor will sparkle about. But you must first bruise the Cherries gently in a mortar, and rub through a sieve all that will pass, and strain the Residue hard through your hands. Then beat the remaining hard so strongly, as may break all the stones. Then put all together, and strain the clean through a subtil strainer, and put the solider substance into the bag to hang in the Wine.
An aume is about 40 gallons. A boulter cloth was the cloth used to sift white flour from whole ground grain: a cheese-cloth bag is a suitable substitution.
Ingredients for one half gallon:
1 gallon of sweet white wine.
1 pound of Morelllo cherries or other variety of sour cherries
1/4 of a stick of real cinnamon.
1 cheese-cloth bag
1 chopstick
1 food grade container, large enough to hold everything, with a screw-top lid.
You can scale this recipe up, as needed, by doubling the ingredients; just remember: 1 pound of cherries per gallon of wine.
Since hanging the cherries in the wine gives a better beverage than letting the bag rest on the bottom of the container, you will need a suitable container. I have made this in my brewing fermenters, with the bag stuck through the hole used for the airlock as well as with a large, clean, plastic pretzel container with a hole poked through the lid. Whatever the container you use, you will end up with the best results if the bag of cherries is suspended in the center of the wine, and not touching the sides or bottom of the container. Use a container large enough to hold the wine and the cherries such that the wine will completely surround the bag of cherries.
Start with 1 pound of whole Morello cherries or other sour cherries. Do not use canned or jarred cherries and nothing packed in syrup. Wash the cherries, pit them, pluck the stems off and squeeze the cherries to get the juice out and then pour the juice into your container and add the wine. You want to use a nice, sweet, white wine; whichever variety you prefer as long as it is sweet.
The original recipe calls for hitting the cherries with a mallet to break the cherry stones. Cherry stones contain a small amount of amygdalin which, when ingested, the body converts to cyanide. It is a small amount of cyanide, but it is still a dangerous poison and can react with not only the alcohol of the wine, but with a lot of medication. It is best to avoid it completely and pit your cherries.
Digby's recipe calls for pouring the wine over a bag of cinnamon, but I don't think that that brief contact is enough to impart enough of the spice into the wine. I prefer to add a stick (1/4 of a stick, to be clear) to the wine. This way the spice can infuse throughout the wine. Please use good cinnamon, not some powder out of a bottle.
Transfer the cherries to the cheese-cloth bag and hang the bag from container's lid. Push the bag through the lid and thread the chopstick through the bag to hold it in place and then close the lid. Cover the hole with some cling wrap to keep evaporation at bay.
Digby does not state how long to let this concoction sit; I recommend two days; not more than three. (Five is right out) After a couple of days, take out the bag of cherries and discard it. Fish out the cinnamon stick, wash it off, dry it and put it someplace safe: it can be reused. Pour the wine into a suitable container that can be sealed (wine bottle, mason jar). Since we will not be fermenting the beverage, you do not have to worry about airlocks or ageing, but you do need a container that can be made air tight. Kept out of sunlight and oxygen, your Morello wine will keep about two months at room temperature or up to six months in the 'fridge.
Morello wine is nice at room temperature and very, very nice when warm. You can heat the wine in a kettle, or in a pot, until it just starts to simmer. Pour into a mug and enjoy. Or, you can heat it up like a hot toddy: heat a fireplace poker until it is red hot and then plunge into a mug, three quarters filled with the wine. The hot hot poker will flash heat the wine and caramelize some of the sugar, making it sweeter.
Be careful when doing this: "red hot" means more than "pretty colors". Wear oven mitts or fireplace gloves when doing this, because the wine will give off steam.
Source:
The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened: Newly Edited, With Introduction, Notes, And Glossary, By Anne Macdonell. London: Philip Lee Warner. 1910
