Galangal Wine
I always liked that Stone’s gigner wine that you get around Christmas time. It’s really gingery, really sweet, and I feel like it goes a bit under the radar. (Also, you’re meant to use ginger wine to make a whiskey mack by the way, not ginger beer like people usually use.) So I thought it would be fun to try making that, only with galangal rather than ginger as it has a nicw extra flowery note to it that I could imagine would be pretty nice.
Funnily enough it turns out that the main ingredient in this sort of ginger wine is in fact raisins, so we’ll be using those to try and mimic the overall sweetness and texture of the drink. I’ve thrown in a few galangal-adjacent extras in there for a bit of complexity, like lemongrass and lume leaves, but they very much take a back seat in this wine.
This turned out surprisingly well for a first attempt - it really does taste like the ginger wine I was aiming for with the addition of that floweriness of the galangal. Next time I try this one I’ll probably bump up the lemongrass, but maybe not the lime leaf. That has a slightly medicinal vibe to it that didn’t affect the flavour badly, but I’d be wary of increasing it too far.
Produces ~1 litre ~11%
☑ TESTED
Ingredients
Flavouring
- 3 L water
- 750 g galangal (wash, peel)
- 500 g raisins (chopped)
- 6 limes (zest and juice)
- 4 sticks lemongrass (bruised, tied in a knot)
- 15 kaffir lime leaves (whole)
- 3 green birdseye chillies (chopped)
- 6 cloves
Fermenting
- 1.25 kg palm sugar
- 3 oolong tea bags (contents of bag only)
- 4 g pectic enzyme / pectolase
- 2 g yeast
- _ g yeast nutrient
Finishing
- 2 g bentonite
- 0.2 g potassium metabisulfite
- 2 g potassium sorbate
- palm sugar to taste (~250 g)
Method
Blend all the ‘Flavouring’ ingredients.
Simmer for an hour.
Leave for 1 day.
Sanitise demijohn 1, stopper, and funnel.
Add the above to DJ1 together with sugar, tea, and pectolase.
Add all the ‘Fermenting’ ingredients.
Wait until fermentation finishes (~3 weeks).
Sanitise DJ2 and siphon.
Siphon from DJ1 to DJ2.
Add bentonite (to clear), potassium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate (to prevent further fermentation if backsweetening).
Wait 1 week.
Sweeten to taste (~250 g sugar).
Sanitise siphon and bottles.
Bottle.
Leave to age for as long as you can (or don’t).