Bottling Holy Water! and Apple/Prune Wine

After almost a month in the vodka bottle fermenter, my Holy Water! thing was finished fermenting. It fermented from a gravity of 1.048 to 0.990, estimated alcohol by volume of 7.5%.

Taste? Well, not so good on its own, but it wasn't made as a stand-alone drink. Not something to have by the glass, but something to add flavor and a small amount of alcohol to cordials and other beverages.

Finished Holy Water!

...Like tea. We tried a new brand and blend of black tea that we really liked, and I wanted to try this with it. Sounds crazy, I know, but it tasted pretty good when mixed half-and-half with cold Bewley's Gold Blend tea. The Holy Water! has a good splash of lemon juice and despite having fermented down so far is still a bit sweet. The sweet citrus kick and a slight alcohol sharpness go well with the tea.

I bottled some of it by itself for future mixing with other drinks and some of it mixed half-and-half with tea. I will let it sit in the bottle for a week or so before trying the finished drink. I hope the tea doesn't lose too much of its freshness in the bottles.

Bottled Holy Water! and Tea

...And while I had my sanitizer mixed up, I decided to check the status of my apple juice/prune juice mix. By the numbers, it had fermented out to an acceptable level, but it was still quite cloudy. I was feeling some bottling momentum and decided to move it into bottles to clear and rest.

Apple/Prune Cider

I tried a sample of the still-cloudy mix. It has some interesting fruity flavors, not all of them amazing. I hope it will improve with some time to clear out the solids.

Bottled Apple/Prune Cider

I will be checking the bottles for any residual fermentation. I didn't add any priming sugar for carbonation, but if fermentation keeps going, these bottles could get a bit pressurized. Because I use plastic bottles, a simple daily squeeze will tell me if I bottled them too soon for safety.

Full report on these finished drinks to come!