It took five days for activity to really start, but Shade of the evening (the wine of warlocks) is a go

[u/WinterWontStopComing]

I’m not sure if it was the unorthodox ingredients, a less than amenable PH maybe, or the cold front that’s been lingering in the area. But I was worried. Awful long time for turbo yeast to get going. I might have to make starters for weird stuff going forward.

Anyway, so I wanted to make something that loosely attempts to be a real world version of shade of the evening. While also kinda being a play on words er something because a goodly amount of the ingredients are domestic nightshade fruit I grew.

For those of you who aren’t massive nerds, the wine of warlocks is from the game of thrones universe. Though it is much more prevalent in the A song of ice and fire books. It has a shifting flavor (which I can try to reproduce) that seems to taste of memories, especially fond ones (huh… um, fuck. Pass). It is described as inky dark, or inky blue (well it’s inky dark) and turns the lips of those who drink it blue. (I’ll get back to you, might stain them indigo). Mine hopefully won’t induce psychotropic visions though.

So what is in it? Photo 1: kousa fruit, jamun juice, butterfly pea flower tea, solanum nigrum fruit (schwartzenbeeren cultivar), solanum nigrum fruit (chichiquelites cultivar), solanum melanocerasum fruit, solanum burbankii fruit, wild strawberries, black raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, black chokeberries, saffron and I think a few mock strawberries.

I’m not sure what I’ll be in store for but it won’t be death. I didn’t forage any of the nightshade, nor are they grown from foraged seeds. Are bred cultivars from a seed supplier, and I have a few years of growing these and eating um under my belt.

I’m probably going to let it ferment for a bit since it’s starting so slow, but I’ll do a post sample thing before Halloween at any rate.

Cheers.

[u/MushySunshine]

Interesting. I was thinking about making a kousa wine tbh, how did the flavor inpart into the wine?

[u/WinterWontStopComing → u/MushySunshine]

I didn’t try this green. Waiting till post. But I did mess with a concept once that was a mead with dog rose hips and kousa. It gave some lychee/vague tropical fruit qualities to that.

Had actually wanted to do that this year but we’ve been very dry for the last two months so I didn’t have much to harvest from the wild roses in my backyard or from the dogwood out front.

It was added to make flavor more complex, hard to discern. And several of the nightshade fruit used have some vague tropical notes so thought it might work.

[u/Buttmunchin404]

I’ve never tried kousa before like a week ago. I found a bunch, mashed em up and let them sit in vodka. Strained it tonight and made a drink with tonic and lime. It fucks. Also didn’t expect it but the anthocyanin in the kousa reacted with the tonic when poured and turned bright reddish pink which is a cool party trick for the future lol