questions for honeysucle wine makers

[jb-texshine]

Ive got lots of honeysuckle and have seen dozens of recipes for wine made from the blossoms,most similar,all using sugar for the alcohol. Some with and some without raisins... got me thinking
Anyway,questions:
1. How much flavor is carried into the wine?
2. Do you think that the flavor would carry through in distillation?
3. Does anyone have any personal experience distilling honeysuckle or other flowerblossom wines if so ,how,and what if anything would you do different.

[wtfdskin]

I've done some dandelion wine a few times, with orange and lemon zest for a citrus touch. It has a rich flavor, more like a weak brandy than would seem to get from a fruit based wine.

Ive never tried to distill it. It would pretty much be a sugar wash like uj but with flowers. Takes alot of blossom picking to make a batch. I used 3 quarts blossoms per gallon. Only use the blossoms. Any green left on will make it bitter.

My mom made a delicious jelly from violets. I would imagine they would make a decent wine.

[jb-texshine]

Most of the recipes call for 3 cups flowers packed and 3 pounds sugar rasins and yeast nutes . I was thinking more like a 2 packed blossoms a gallon and 7 or 8 lbs sugar per 5 gallon of water. Hit it with a yeast bomb and 1118 yeast. Distill withthe flowers in the pot soon as ferm complete.

[Pikey]

I do dandelion, elderflower and wallflower wines. Never distilled any of them and don't know how it woud go. BUT I'd get the flowers out of your ferment within 48 hours, otherwise they may start developing off-flavours.

Try it and if it doesn't go to plan, put a few flowers in the distillate as an infusion for a day or possibly two. Alcohol picks some tastes up very well but be carefull not to overdo the flavour.

[Pikey]

PS - is honeysuckle non- toxic then ? My old mum said ..... - But then according to her hawthorn and elderberries were poisonous too !

Sounds like a great wine - do you have a Latin name for yoru honeysuckle - just so I can check it's the same as ours ?

[shadylane]

Just my guess

1. How much flavor is carried into the wine?

Some of the honeysuckle flavor, will make into the wine

2. Do you think that the flavor would carry through in distillation?

Very little of the delicate honeysuckle flavor, will make it into the distillate.
But don't let my guess slow your experimenting down

[jb-texshine]

Pikey,loniceria i belive is the spelling.
Shady, id be happy if i got little taste but got the smell of honeysuckle,lol. I got a half mile of fence covered with it so plenty for experimenting.

[cranky]

I think it might be a good addition to gin, I have some flowers I've been saving for a gin or an attempt at galliano. For the record the berries are mildly poisonous and some varieties of flowers are poisonous. Here is some good info on that ( http://www.eattheweeds.com/honeysuckle-heaven-2/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow ) I would like to give distilling a honeysuckle wine a try, there are honeysuckle plants at the blueberry park here and I have thought about it from time to time so I would like to see how this turns out.

[jb-texshine]

Itll be another month at least till there flowering but it seems that spring is almost here in tx. Ill give it a shot and let yall know how it comes out.

[smoCha]

I just did a dandelion shine, 3lb of flowers in a 10g ferment. Sugar wash, but a lot of flower flavor came through. I'm really happy with it