Taste-testing time! Ok, the first one I tasted was a suggestion from a friend… a cheap and easy way to make an okay table wine… I went and bought 2 half-gallon bottles of Welch’s white grape juice and added sugar and yeast to them: one dessert wine, and one drier wine. The dessert wine is perfect, but young… of course. I will rebottle it and store it for clarification and aging. The dry white wine was also very decent. It’s amazing that just 1/3 cup of white sugar can make such a difference in flavor. I still don’t have a hydrometer, so I know that they probably have varying levels of alcohol in them. Anyway, the next taste test was hard iced tea (wine). I made peach flavored black tea and added sugar and raspberries right into the fermentation tank. It’s nice, although I think it could be slightly sweeter. I added more sugar and I will let it ferment for a while longer… at least a couple of weeks, then I will store it for aging and clarification. The flavor was awesome… peach and raspberry tea 🙂 delicious. The next taste test was a huckleberry dessert wine… I took a total gamble on how it might turn out. I used a frozen huckleberry ice cream topping sort of thing… just mashed huckleberries with sugar, and added it to the fermenter with a tiny bit of extra sugar. It really is pretty sweet, but the astringency of the dark huckleberry skins balances it out. The next taste test was a hibiscus tea wine… really sketchy, but I thought it might be fun to try. It does resemble a cherry wine, but maybe a cherry wine made with dried cherries versus fresh ones. I think it needs to ferment for a little longer… or something. I guess that’s all of the wine tasting for now… there are two wines left, but I will save them for another time. I’m going for a nice walk in the park 🙂