A co-worker was cleaning out the office refrigerator and found some OJ that had passed its prime. Someone made the remark that perhaps we should add a little sugar, let it ferment, and make orange wine. Which leads me to the question: Why not? Is there something peculiar about citrus fruit that makes wine (or some other alcoholic beverage) making more difficult? Grapes are pretty acidic so that doesn’t sound like that should be an issue. Is there a liquer made from oranges, and not just orange flavored? Any thoughts? Questions? Anyone like a mint?
I’ll hasard a guess and say that A)there are easier things to make alcoholic drinks out of, B)oranges are pretty new to the fruit scene, and C)it would probably just taste nasty anyway.
I’ve had Kiwi fruit wine (with gold dust, no less) and it was vile. Orange “wine” may well be similar.
Oranges are of course used for some drinks, notably Cointreau. I understand some people like it.
picmr
There is an orange liquer. If I’m remembering correctly, it’s called Chambord. (sp?)
-LabRat
You can make wine out of almost anything that rots. My grandpappy made (I kid you not) dandelion wine, and it was pretty good. Likely the reason there’s no orange wine is more fashion and custom, rather than taste. For example, hard cider completely disappeared from the scene until the microbrewery explosion of the past ten years, even though it was the most popular alcoholic drink in colonial times.
You can make wine out of almost anything that rots. My grandpappy made (I kid you not) dandelion wine, and it was pretty good. Likely the reason there’s no orange wine is more fashion and custom, rather than taste. For example, hard cider completely disappeared from the scene until the microbrewery explosion of the past ten years, even though it was the most popular alcoholic drink in colonial times.
A co-worker makes some every year for an annual memorial day party, and I like it.
I remember that it seemed to be quite high in alcohol, a couple of glasses and I was pretty well in the bag.
Now, SuaSponte, would we doubt you? There’s even a song about the stuff, the chorus of which goes
I’m not sure who, if anyone, holds the copywrite on it, but I’ve heard it sung by the Clancey Brothers and Tommy Makem.
As to the wine itself, many members of my family have made it (you use just the blossoms), and from what I understand, it’s better than most grape wines.
From http://www.unm.edu/~leroym/Wines.html
That site has a number of unusual wine recipes. Orange, OK, but I think I’ll pass on the tomato wine. Anything that has sugar or starch in it can potentially ferment. Wine yeasts will want a decent acid balance, too, but just look at the variety of stuff which cultures around the world have made alcoholic beverages out of …
LabRat, Chambord is raspberry-flavored liqueur. I believe it’s brandy-based. Grand Marinier is maybe what you’re thinking of, but that’s orange flavored, not made with oranges.
The main brands are Gran Marnier (sweet, orange) and Cointreau (tart, clear), and Orange Curaçao (tart, orange).
Both start as “wine”, liquor base, but aren’t really drinkable until the sugar is added after distilling.
Here’s a description of the precess:
** http://www.acom.fr/cointreau/ **
The inmates at the prison where my husband works used to hide rubber bags of orange juice, wad bread into balls and toss it in and let the thing ferment. He said they used to confinscate it easily because the stench travelled awesomely. He said it was the most god-awful, noxious odor he had ever encounterd. He couldn’t believe they actually drank the stuff.
A survey of winenologists said none of them would drink green wine.
Some of you might remember the series of humorous short stories written by an english veterinarian under the nom de plume James Herriott:
All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, etc…
In his second book (All Things Bright and Beautiful) he wrote about a visit to local farmer “Mr. Crump”, where he (the veterinarian) gets drunk on a variety of homemade wines: rhubarb, elderflower, blackberry, parsnip, dandelion, cowslip, parsley, clover, gooseberry, beetroot, crab apple, turnip (!).
I don’t know how accurate James Herriott’s stories are.
I’m pretty much with SuaSponte. You can make wine out of pretty much any fruit, vegetable or plant material. Dandelion wine can be quite pleasant, but you do have to gather an awful lot of dandelions to make it.
However, one word of warning with regards to the the almost in “almost anything that rots”… as conveyed from a letter in a DIY Winemakers magazine to which an acquaintance of mine subscribed: “Never, ever, try to make wine out of chicken”. :eek:
Why not? I’ve read a recipe in several of my home brewing books about “Cock Ale,” a beer made from, in part, a rooster. Here’s a link to a recipe for same on Cat’s Meow, an online database of beer recipes:
http://hbd.org/brewery/cm3/recs/13_23.html
As mentioned here: ( http://www.greatlakes.brewingnews.com/9712/twilight.html ) the Boston Beer Company, brewers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, even made a batch.
Cock Ale was mentioned in this recent mailbag column:
OK, good call. 
I’m happy to admit to having never tried making chicken wine myself, and was simply repeating something I’d read.
So, you’re right. Why not? The biggest difference that I can see is that in the Beer recipes the chicken is being used for flavoring and not the bulk of the drink. To quote from the “Beers of The Twilight Zone” you linked:
So, the beer is still beer, made with barley or what-have-you and flavoured with hops… with the added bonus of KFC as the special flavouring agent.
Similarly, the recipe in Gaudere’s column requires 10 gallons of ale and a chicken.
Now, this is just my WAG mind, but as Elderberry wine or Dandelion wine is made wholly from said berries or flowers, then Chicken wine would be made wholly (or at least predominantly) from the juice extracted from a chicken… cooked… I guess. :shudder:
The juice itself would then be fermented (read rot). As an aside, a Swedish friend of mine told me about a local delicacy of the area she hails from, the spelling of which I will mangle as Lutefisk, which is fermented herring. She also said that it was possible to tell when the neighbours opened a jar of it. I strongly suspect that chicken wine might have a similar bouquet.
When fruit ferments the sugars change to alchohol and carbon dioxide with the effect of yeast. Is the effect the same with meat? I don’t know… but I don’t think there’ll be much fructose or sucrose in chicken. Is there a chemist in the house?
There is an orange liquor called “Rock’n Rye” IIRC. It might be “Rock and Rye”.
Anyway, I’m not sure if it is just orange flavored or if it actually uses oranges as a main ingrediant. It is only about 60 proof but has a nice flavor and years ago it actually had a few slices of orange floating in it though I think they gave those up a while back.
As far as Dandelion wine, maybe my discriminating palate has been spoiled by the more high class commercial dinner wines like “Mad Dog” and “Wild Irish Rose”, but from what I remember of my childhood, that stuff sucked…didn’t stop me from drinking it, but yechhhh.
So what’s Triple Sec made out of?