To Make Gilly-flower Wine is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for making a wine-based cordial from sherry sweetened with sugar and flavoured with clove-pink carnations. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of: To Make Gilly-flower Wine.
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Original Recipe
To Make Gilly-flower Wine (from The Queen's Closet Opened [London, 1655])
Take two ounces of dried Gilly-flowers, and put them into a bottle of Sack, and beat three ounces of Sugar-candy, or fine Sugar, and grinde some Ambergreese, and put it in the bottle and shake it oft, then run it through a gelly bag, and give it for a great Cordial after a weeks standing or more. You may make Lavender Wine as you do this.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
60g dried clove-pinks (mini-carnations)
750ml sherry
90g powdered sugar
a little ambergris (omit if not available), ground to a powder
Method:
Remove the husks, stems and heels from the flowers (these are bitter) then combine all the ingredients in a large jar and set aside for a week in a dark place, inverting the bottle every time you pass.
After this time pour through a fine-meshed sieve lined with a double layer of muslin or cheese-cloth then pour into a bottle, stopper well and use as a cordial.
