PL: Did you have any other recipes for cider? Did you ever make cider wine?
Mrs M: Yes, we made cider wine.
WGM: Have you got the recipe? I wouldn’t know where it is to.
Mrs M: Oh, I expect it’s still about somewhere. But, um, it was quite simple, wasn’t it? We put so many gallons, we used to – I’ll tell you how – we used to buy the vinegar barrels, used to have five-gallon vinegar barrels one time, and you could pick them up at the shops for about two and sixpence back then. We used to fill those up with it – well, we made one or two for ourselves. We used to give it all away. We didn’t like it; so much sugar and so much ginger, that’s about all there was to it; dry the root ginger and you crush that and that let it work. I think that was about all it involved; I don’t think we used yeast.
WGM: No, we didn’t.
Mrs M: No, it was the cider worked it – you didn’t need yeast. That’s about all it involved.
PL: But you didn’t drink it; you just gave it away?
Mrs M: We gave it away, yes, it’s funny really. We used to ...oh, we’ve made gallons and gallons of wine of different sorts – elderberry, elderflower, parsnip – we never used to drink it.
WGM: We never used to like it.
Mrs M: Rhubarb. I used to get the gallon gin jars. A chap I knew used to drink a lot of gin; it was cheaper in those days, and he used to buy it by the gallon jars, you see, and when they were empty I used to have the jars from him and we used to fill up those. I put some down in what we call our little dairy, where I used to keep my big pans of milk with these jars on the floor. There was a terrific bang one night, and it had blown the bottom right out of the jar. They was black ...it was like port to drink; it was really lovely. We haven’t made it for years; we don’t bother now. I think – what have we made since we’ve been down here? Hip wine, wasn’t it?
PL: Do you know of any health problems or cures that people thought cider affected? I’ve heard that it’s sometimes thought to be bad for rheumatism.
Mrs M: It’s bad for gout. I don’t know if that would come under the same thing. I know a chap that I worked for, he used to love his cider. He used to have a pint and a half every day with his dinner, and he had gout very badly, and the doctor told him to keep off his cider. That’s about the only thing I know.
PL: So you haven’t heard this rheumatism rumour at all?
Mrs M: No, no.