Marrow rum - part two

I'm on a real buzz for making wine again at the moment.

Went over to my best friend in Shrewsbury on Saturday night and had a mad lock in, as he's the landlord, till four in the morning drinking all sorts of weird drinks, the one with peppers in I will never drink again! So its got me keen to get all my wine going again as they can be great fun to drink, strong and a talking point as people don't realise how easy it is to do.

Also went to Mum and Dads this weekend (the miles I do is unreal) and had a good tidy up of all my old brewing and wine making gear and cleaned some up ready to make some more in the next few months. I've got about 6 gallons of wine ready to be bottled up now - plum, strawberry, elderberry, crab apple and damson.

The made up marrow rum seems to be working. Its started to drip into the bowl and gone soft so today I made a slit in the bottom and drained it into a demijohn. I'll leave it until the morning before I'll fit an airlock on it.

Marrow Rum

Managed to get away from work an hour early so it let me cook tea and do a few other little jobs.

For tea I made a tomato and basil sauce with pasta, nearly everything was out of the garden except the pasta - haven't found a plant for that yet.

Whilst that was cooking I've also managed to dig out my food dryer and started to dry some sage leaves for making my own dried mixed herbs to use over winter.

And then the fun bit! Haven't made any wine or alcohol in ages and I've decided its time I start again. Tonight we began making marrow rum.

First we hollowed out the marrow (well its an over grown courgette but I'm not telling anyone!)

Then packed it with brown sugar

Before pouring over it some bakers yeast we had activated a couple of hours earlier (with a little lemon juice to help things along).

We then taped it back up,
Before hanging it in a pair of tights in the airing cupboard (something mum would never let me do! hope it doesn't make our towels smell!) with a bowl under it to catch the drips. I will keep you posted on the next stages of development.

Quite keen to make some more wine soon, so keen I went online last night and brought some "super" yeast that can make wine up to 23% - should be fun for parties!