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				fennel wine?
				Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:31 pm
				by shell
				has anyone made fennel wine? the plant not the bulb type,i have a lot  of fennel growing and i use the leaves for tea,i was wondering if i could make a wine from it or mix it with something else? the aniseed aroma would be great but how would it taste?
			 
			
					
				Re: fennel wine?
				Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 4:43 pm
				by 1810ss
				Yes, and it was truly awful.  I can look the recipe out for you, but I'd rather drink dirty dishwater.  The aniseed like flavour was lost, and became a horrible solvent-like taste. I expected a kind of retsina taste, but was bitterly dissapointed- I threw it all away.  
You can make a really good chutney with about 50% fennel stems/leaves, 25% onions and 25% apples (plus normal quatitites of sugar and vinegar and spices etc.)
			 
			
					
				Re: fennel wine?
				Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:50 pm
				by MKG
				In all cases of strong-tasting herbs, making a wine from them is a mistake. However, there is a way around this which the French and Italians have known about for a long time - hence vermouth. Make a white wine strong in alcohol but not in flavour. When that's finished fermenting, suspend a bag of the herbs in question in the wine. The alcohol leeches the herb flavour very efficiently. When the required flavour strength is achieved, take out the bag of herbs, leave the wine to mature a bit, and hey presto.
			 
			
					
				Re: fennel wine?
				Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:35 pm
				by shell
				yes well i think i will give it a miss 

 and stick to making tea with it