Fig wine and preserves

[Graye]

It looks as if we will have a huge crop of green figs this year. Does anyone have recipes for fig wine?

I like making liqueurs with eau de vie type spirits (anise, aquardiente, vodka etc) and have had lots of success with cracked coffee beans and plenty of sugar, all shaken and left for as long as you can resist. Figs sound like a possible candidate for the same treatment - has anyone tried it?

Other than drying them does anyone know of any other methods for preserving the fruit? Will they bottle, etc or would jam be best?

[MKG]

Try here ...

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/fig.asp

I've never done this one, but lots of people swear by Jack Keller. I'm not so sure, but then I'm an old stick in the mud.

[Rod in Japan]

Fig jam is sold in my neighbourhood, but I don't recommend it. Jam requires tart fruit, and figs aren't tart. For a while I bought it religiously out of devotion to figs and to encourage the local economy, but I couldn't escape the fact that it didn't taste of anything much. So I switched to local honey instead.

I planted 4 figs last year and I'm going to try drying the surplus, but it'll be interesting to see what other ideas people have. I wonder if bottling in wine, red or white, would be good?

[Odsox]

I get overwhelmed with figs every year and I tried drying them, but they taste awful

No idea why, I love dried figs that you buy but mine were nothing like that.
I made fig jam too and it tasted exactly like strawberry jam for some reason.
So now I sell them to a local restaurant for ridiculous money
They use them for fig compote.

[Rod in Japan]

A significant percentage of the dried figs that are imported from Iran, Turkey and such places also taste pretty awful. In one packet, I'd estimate that about 1/3 taste semi-rotten.