Spring Means Making Wine (Or at Least it Used to!) –Recipes by various Family Members

   

I have raided my mother’s recipe box and found five delicious sounding wine recipes. Some are from Mom’s side and some are from Dad’s side.

It’s been a long cold and wintry few months. At times, it was difficult to get the chill out of our bones and bodies. But, spring IS coming. And, that means buds and leaves on trees, flowers in our yards, green grass and yes, dandelions.

I share this blog post now as our three dandelion wine recipes specify to pick the dandelion flowers early.

Enjoy!!

We’ll begin with Lillian Baker Howland’s recipe for Dandelion Wine. Aunt Lil was born in Center Lisle in 1892 and died in 1984.

Dandelion Wine:

4 Qts. Yellow dandelion blows  (pick early)

Pour over them 4 qts. of boiling water

Let stand 3 days.

Add—

Yellow rind of 2 lemons

Yellow rind of 4 oranges

Boil 15 minutes and strain.

When lukewarm, add pulp of oranges and lemons, removing seeds and white membranes.

4 lbs. of granulated sugar

½ yeast cake

Let stand in warm place one week. Strain, let stand 3 weeks. Strain and bottle.

Mom remembers visiting at Aunt Lil’s house and playing with her favorite cousin Gladys when they were about 12 years old. For some reason, they went down into the basement of the house, which was unusual—it was a dark and scary place. Back in a black cobwebbed corner, the girls found a large vinegar jar. They found a small cup nearby and tried it. Hmmm, pretty good stuff, whatever it was. They each had a few sips and then ran upstairs and pranced and danced around the house. When Aunt Lil discovered that they had gotten into HER dandelion wine, she was beside herself and ‘scolded them like the dickens’. Mom paid attention; she never went into that basement again!

One very strong memory of Aunt Lil that I have was when she was up at our cottage on Otty Lake in Ontario, Canada. She was very old, and we kids were not sure how ‘with it’ she was. We really wondered when she walked around our yard and pulled some catnip out of our garden. She popped it in her mouth before my brother Tom or I could say anything, and slowly and happily began to chew it. I can still hear his hesitant soft question to her, the panic in his voice, and the look of wonder on Tom’s face: “Aunt Lil, can you EAT catnip?” “Oh yes, I enjoy it!” Aunt Lil will always be a character in our memories!

This next recipe for Dandelion Wine is from Aunt Lil’s grandmother, Nancy Cornelia Borthwick Baker. She was born in Freetown, NY in 1838 and died in 1916.

Dandelion Wine:

4 qts. dandelion blows

7 qts. water and boil it to 4 qts. Strain

Add 4 lbs. Sugar

2 sliced lemons

Put in a jar with a slice of toast on top. On top of the toast, put a dry yeast cake and tie a cloth over the top of the jar. Leave in a warm place for 6 weeks.

Mom, aka Aunt CB, also made dandelion wine once when we lived at 2846. There could still be found a large field where no chemicals were sprayed, and that was where she picked the dandelion ‘blows’. She only made the wine once, but it lasted for years as no one had much of it at a time (actually, if I am remembering correctly, it was when many of us were able to drink, so we kept to our store-bought beers or wines instead of the more herbal dandelion wine she made. But, an experience to drink!)

Our third rendition of Dandelion Wine comes from Aunt Mary Daily Kinsella, on my Dad’s side. Aunt Mary was born in Homer, NY in 1935 and died in 2013.

Dandelion Wine:

4 qts. blossoms—add to hot barley water

4 qts. barley water—(to make barley water, add in 8 T. barley, cook in double boiler for 2 hours)

Let stand overnight, strain and add:

3 lbs. Sugar ( 1 lb, equals 2 C.)

1 lb. raisins

1 yeast cake (or powdered)

3 oranges

1 lemon

Let stand in warm place one week then strain and put in cool place 3 weeks. Strain and bottle.

My cousin Kathy, Aunt Mary’s daughter, writes:

“My mom made dandelion wine every year! She and my dad loved it. Mom used to send us over to the elementary school to pick dandelions and it would take hours to get enough. And all for something we couldn’t partake in! But we did as we were asked. I’ll have to try the recipe sometime. But who’s going to pick the dandelions?!”

Next up, two versions of Rhubarb Wine, although Mom does not know whose they are.

Rhubarb Wine:

5 lbs. rhubarb pulp (fresh rhubarb that has been bruised, crushed or ground)

1 gal. cold water

3 lbs. sugar

1 lemon, sliced thin

Pour cold water over rhubarb and let stand three days, stirring daily. On the 4^th day, pour mixture through a sieve. Pour liquid into a crock and add sugar and lemon. Cover with cloth and let stand 4 to 6 weeks to ferment. When fermenting subsides, skim and bottle.

Rhubarb Wine:

Put a gallon of slushy rhubarb sauce into a crock with 2 qts. warm water, 4 lbs. of sugar, and one package of dissolved yeast. Ferment mix for 10 days, add one box raisins and allow to ferment 2 weeks more. Strain through cloth, bottle in sterilized jars, cork lightly and when fermentation stops, seal. Makes an excellent dry pink wine.

Arnon Taylor

Our last wine recipe is Uncle Arnon’s elderberry wine. 

Elderberry Wine:

Put only enough water with berries to keep them from burning and cook but a few minutes, just long enough to scald thoroughly. Strain through cheesecloth, add 8 C. sugar to 10 C. berries juice. Set in cool place to ferment and skim daily until clear. When bubbles cease to rise to top of liquid, it is ready to bottle.

Our last recipe DOES concern wine, and I could make a crack about Lochners loving their desserts, but drinking wine IS better with cookies, so thank you to Julie Lochner Riber for suggesting Aunt Lil’s Wine Drops be added to this assortment of spring recipes!

Wine Drops                                                    From Lilypickle

½ C. molasses                                    1 C. Sugar

½ C. melted butter                             ½ C. raisins

½ C. hot water                                   3 C. flour

1 t. soda                                             1 t. cinnamon

1 egg                                                 ½ t. cloves

1 t. salt                                     Bake at 350 degrees.

Julie writes: “It's a yummy chewy, molasses cookie recipe that I first had when your mother, Susan and I visited Wendell's wife Joyce a few years back and also spent a couple nights with Dorothy and first toured Jon Maney's Hyde Hall.  It originally came from Aunt Lil.”

Other memories from cousins:

Harold and Barb Taylor

From Judy Taylor Alberts:

 “Pops tried beer once in the cellar. I remember it burst and Mom yelled "Harold". Memories...

From Evelyn Laufer Taylor:

Bryant and Evie Taylor

"Bryant and I “dabbled” in a couple of wines.  The first was dandelion wine as we had a yellow sea of dandelions on our property. My daughter Pam and a friend of hers picked the blossoms for us, and we took it from there, but did not use just the petals ( I checked on line recipe today).  We should not have used the green sepals which are the small leaves under the flower. It made the wine BITTER just as the article online said it would.

As we were beekeepers, we had to make honey wine or mead.  It is the oldest of wines, and we were successful with it.  

Once we tried making a liqueur.  We drilled a hole in a fresh coconut, filled it with gin, sealed the opening, and buried it for 3 months.  Wheeee!!!!!"

Thanks to all for these memories! And, yes, I do see quite a few yellow dandelions in my side yard just waiting to be picked.

Memories of Adin Baker by CB Taylor Kinsella

Blessed Uncle Adin—Everyone’s favorite uncle!

Grandma Kate Baker was always a busy woman but in the early years of her marriage she really packed it in! Married September 6^th, 1885, she and Byron apparently rented a house on a small farm.

When Kate became pregnant very early in their years together, the owner of the house objected and said ‘he wanted no child born there’ and made them move out.

Such treatment upset young Kate and caused her to lose the baby. You can see the stone, labeled ‘Baby 1886’ in the Baker plot in the Center Lisle Cemetery. Kate never forgave that man!

She and Byron then moved to the house on Caldwell Hill Road (1183), paid down on the farm and again they started their family.

Nancy Ethel Baker born July 30^th, 1887

Adin Leonard Baker born June 26^th, 1889

Ruth Inez Baker born January 21^st, 1891

Lillian Rosina Baker born November 4^th, 1892

Thus, in six years, Kate had borne five children.

Further complicating a busy time, Ruth was born with a condition known then as ‘blue baby’—a heart condition where the blood does not pass through the proper heart valves to be oxygenated, re-oxygenated and sent through the body. No surgery was possible in those years, so Ruth’s life was known to be short and she needed extra care.

Ethel, I know from her tales, spent a fair amount of time with next door neighbors, so I imagine that Adin did also.

Adin, as I knew him, was a hardworking, cheerful, quiet person. He had an above average IQ, judging by the success of his farm work and the number of things he was interested in and had great knowledge of. He was also close to family members, always attending cousins’ events and funerals. He did have a proper suit of clothes for these events, but his daily attire consisted of long underwear (any season), flannel shirt-- always hanging half tucked in, and work pants with a belt, but low on his hips!

When we ‘helped’ him with his work, he never let us think that we were not indispensible to its success! Winding the wheel when he sharpened axes or knives to helping collect old branches from the woods, we were ‘important’. He had rules, though, which we observed. We were NOT allowed in the barn during milking times (strangers upset cows). We were allowed to take a cup of grain in a sack and go find the horses (Pet and Reba) but NOT chase any of them. If we could get on a horse we could ride it.

He was the soul of generosity. Everyone in the area came to ‘borrow’ money. We knew, because they’d come to the door for Adin, and he’d take them into his bedroom, transact ‘business’, share a half glass of ‘hootch’ with them and they would leave.

Was he ever repaid? Sometimes, maybe. At the time of his death, his sisters found only a handful of i.o.u’s . I do know that from time to time, a new chair or footstool would appear in his house, probably ‘paybacks’ for loans.

And sometime during the 1930 depression years, an elderly neighbor and his wife, having lost their farm and home, came to him in despair. Adin had a large barn behind the house that he kept farm tools, rakes, and wagons in. He portioned off a section as their apartment and the man helped with farm work as he could.

Harold and he conversed about his ‘wandering years as a hobo’. I know I’ve written of them; they must have occurred before he bought the farm from Kate and Byron.

In the late 1940’s or early 1950’s, Adin finally bought plans for a catalog house and put it on a lot carved from farm acreage down the road. Gladys helped him choose it. Living room, kitchen, his bedroom downstairs with inside toilet—it had three bedrooms upstairs. Kate, forced to move, always mourned ‘her home’. 

Adin spoke often of the traveling he hoped to do, go west, see the Rocky Mountains, but good son that he was, he stayed home to care for Kate who lived to be 91 years old. Both Adin and Ethel were at her bedside when she died.

The Three Taylor Brothers, by CB Taylor Kinsella and Pat Kinsella Herdeg

As a follow up to my brother Tim’s story about the three Taylor brothers going to college:

http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-taylor-brothers-go-to-college-by_16.html

Mom and I would like to put down what we think the three brothers did later in their lives.

Bryant Waller Taylor, my great grandfather, was born in 1859 in Oakfield, NY. B.W. married Emma Jane Carson in 1885.

After Genesee Wesleyan Seminary. B.W. taught school in Oakfield for at least one year per his wife Emma’s diaries. Afterwards, he did help Daniel on the farm with all of the myriad chores. 

By the year 1892, B.W. and Emma were in Springville, NY where the twins were born. B.W. had joined with another man in the running of a store there. Before too long the other fellow ran off with all the money, leaving B.W. holding the bag full of debts. As clearly as I can tell, B.W. kept the store viable, barely, to clear the debts, and somewhere in this time Daniel and Cordelia offered him the same deal that Phebe had offered Daniel, ownership of the farm for their living there for life.

Carlton Walbridge Taylor was born in 1863 in Oakfield, NY. Carlton married Jeannie McNair in 1890.

Carlton and Jeannie moved to Illinois; they both became teachers in Speech Therapy at the Illinois State School for the Deaf in Jacksonville, Illinois. During the years Carlton and Jeannie taught in Illinois, they maintained a summer home—named ‘Bonnie Brae’-- back in New York. It was on the corner of the Oakfield-Batavia road and near Woodlawn, where Carlton’s parents lived.

During the summer months, they lived there, Carlton helping B.W. on the farm and Jeannie visiting with her relatives in nearby Sonyea. When they returned to school, Daniel and Cordelia, Carlton’s parents, moved in to keep house and relieve the congestion of two generations at the Woodlawn farm. When the older parents could no longer live there independently, they returned to an apartment in the farm house and Carlton eventually sold this small house.

For a more in depth look at Carlton Walbridge Taylor, please see the two blog stories below from 2010:

http://taylorbakercousins.blogspot.com/2010/02/

Orrin Taylor

Orrin Morehouse Taylor was born in Oakfield in 1865. He married Mary Ladd Armstrong in 1894. 

He received his education at the University of Wisconsin where his brother-in-law-- Prof.William Arnon Henry--worked. William Henry was in charge of fruit and vegetable horticulture and Orrin worked with him there for two years in the early 1890’s.

By 1896, Orrin began work at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva. NYSAES proudly states that it has developed cutting-edge technologies essential to feeding the world and strengthening New York economies for more than 125 years. 

 Mom writes that Orrin worked as 'fruit professor' at NYSAES, and did all of their fruit propagation, but it all had to be published under his boss' name because Orrin did not have a college degree. He was in great demand, speaking in upstate localities. 

Orrin created many varieties of fruits and with one, an exceptionally tasty red raspberry, he was rewarded by having it named after him, the Taylor variety of red raspberry.

Orrin retired in 1926. Look for more information on Orrin in an upcoming blog post.

The Taylor boys only spent one year at Genesee Wesleyan, but that one year seems to have given them a solid foundation for the paths each boy took later in life.