[Sca-cooks] May wine

[Susanne Mayer]

Hello all,

The toxic substance in woodruff  is Coumarin (btw the same as in Cinamon 
(chinese mare than ceylon) and we always made it with a dry white wine 
(Riesling, Veltliner, Pinot blanc,..).

woodruff is best befor the flowers  open and for the typical taste to 
develope you have to pick it and let them wilt for a few hours or overnight 
(a small bouquet, here the 12 sprigs can give you an idea, is enough for 1 
bottle of wine). Hang th bunch in th wine put in the fridge for about 2-3 
hours (the longer you soak the woodruff in the wine, the more coumarin you 
will have, albeit you do get the typical taste only from the coumarin). If 
you want: add sugar, fill up either with mineral water or and dray sparklig 
wine (prosecco/champagne/cava/sekt,...) and make a may bowl out of it.

A word of caution: may wine is delicious, but if you overindulge you WILL 
get a real beast of a headache (I know this from experience).

Here the info on coumarin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coumarin

BTW you can freeze the woodruff for later (no wilting needed).

I love may wine and may try the strawbeery variant Joanne postet

regards Katharina
DW, ad flumen caerulum

>> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 09:34:40 -0400
> From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May wine
> To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Message-ID: <014661CB-0FAD-460A-9F1C-E4864C65144A at verizon.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
>
> On May 8, 2009, at 9:17 AM, devra at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I only tasted May wine once, many years ago. It was pretty nice. Now
>> I've just planted a sweet woodruff in one of my herb pots, so I
>> wondered... what kind of wine? approximately how much herb? how long
>> to soak together?
>
> There ism in fact, a May wine Wiki page (not to be confused with the
> May Wine page, which concerns a musical):
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_wine
>
> It says, among other things, that sweet woodruff is mildly poisonous,
> but 3 grammes (is a gramme a gram?) of woodruff per liter of wine is
> within reasonable limits.
>
> I'm sort of assuming they mean the dried herb, and I have no idea how
> long it infuses. I guess if you're within that safe window you can
> experiment a bit on infusion times.
>
> Adamantius
>
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 08 May 2009 10:01:25 -0400
> From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May wine
> To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Message-ID: <4A043B35.5060200 at mac.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> We used to make it with a German white wine, maybe a Dry Riesling???
> This was back when if you were under 21 but over 18, you could legally
> buy and drink wine and beer.
> We used to do lots of things with wines then. Remember wine coolers and
> jug wines.
> Wicca101.com http://www.unc.edu/~reddeer/recipe/rec_beltain.html has
> this recipe
> MAY WINE  1 bottle of German White Wine; 1/2 cup Fresh Strawberries,
> sliced; 12 sprigs of fresh woodruff
> Pour wine into carafe or wide mouth bottle. Add strawberries and
> woodruff and allow to blend for at least an hour. Strain and serve well
> chilled. Garnish with thin orange slice. The strawberries add a
> wonderful flavour and the woodruff adds sweetness.
>
> Another source says 1 bottle of fairly good white table wine, not
> Chardonnay, chilled.
>
> Johnnae
>> Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 14:10:26 +0000
> From: Holly Stockley <hollyvandenberg at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] May wine
> To: <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Message-ID: <BLU102-W1CD110FA4A16DAFF44F33B5640 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> For MY preference, a nice semi-dry Riesling.  I like Round 
> Barn's:http://www.roundbarnwinery.com/The gerwurtz is a little too spicy 
> to go well.
> Femke
> I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
>
> - Douglas Adams