A LETHAL DOSE

I do not think I have mentioned the fact that I make liqueurs from all manner of fruits. It began with sloe gin many years ago and has evolved into an annual ritual involving apricots, damsons raisins, cherries, blueberries, raspberries and anything else I can lay my hands on. Today I bottled three of this years liqueurs, by Christmas they will be drinkable but left for a year or two the will be fabulous. I started by bottling the blue berry vodka, the the cherry brandy and finally the Seville and Clementine white rum. By the time I had finished the kitchen smelled like a distillery and I was feeling rather light headed. On the kitchen table was a bowl full of all the spirit soaked fruits and I suddenly had an idea, I picked about two pounds of damsons from the orchard and mixed them with the boozy fruit and four cooking apples and stewed them until all the fruit was soft, them put it in a jelly bag to strain until tomorrow. By now the kitchen smelled even worse and a plague of inquisitive wasps drifted about the room threatening to drown themselves in the dripping juice.
Wether or not my plan for this juice works I shall not know until tomorrow but if my guess is correct it will make a wonderful spicy fruit jelly for the Christmas table and for gifts too. I will let you know how it comes out tomorrow, if the Gods spare me.
Back to the spirits, after I had strained the contents in to bottles I had quite a bit left over, so of course I tasted all of them,just to see if they were all right you understand. Then Pa tasted all of them to make sure that my opinion was not a biased one,we agreed that they were very good indeed. We still had some of the orange rum left so I put it in a small bottle for the boys next door to try.
By now my head was spinning and Pa said he felt the same. I had already taken the bottle next door along with three jars of chutney, a joint effort, made by me with their tomatoes. I grew concerned about the amount of liqueur I had sent round, judging by the way Pa and I were feeling I thought it could be a lethal dose. I am not joking, years ago a friend of ours drank a whole bottle of raspberry wine and slept for thirty odd hours, her husband drove here the eighty miles home and left her asleep in the car. When he found her still asleep the next morning he drove her to hospital and rang me for the antidote! Fortunately she eventually woke up but it was two days before she sobered up and she could never remember anything about that night. Since then we have been careful to warn our friends about the possible side effects of our home made hooch!.They seemed fine and I left them sipping their drinks satisfied that I had done all I could. I think there is not much doubt that if I had lived three hundred years in the past I should have been burned at the stake as I am told an ancestor or mine was , alchemy runs in the family it seems. Thirty years ago my father and some friends had a still in an old barn on our farm. When ever it was going you could smell it miles away but as we lived out in the wilds that did not matter. On bottling days the men of two villages would gather in the barn and would emerge later in a well sozzled state. The postman and the milk collection man and the village blacksmith all partook of this appalling brew. It ended when the village women, tired of having to cover for their well oiled spouses threatened to turn them in if they did not cease and desist. Knowing they were beaten the men backed down and the still dismantled. Sic transit Gloria vinum......I think?
My son is still enjoying his holiday in spite of a few showers here and there and has purchased a painting for his room from a gallery in Hungerford with which he is very pleased, he intends to hand it above his bed, I dubious spot to hang a picture if you ask me.
Pa is quite his old self today and I am so happy, to have him cheerful and alert is like a holiday for me, long may it last.