Two Local wines you never knew about!
It was very hard to track down a perfect explanation of these two wines but I believe Felix did it justice.
Cerise Wine
As a boy growing up in the 80’s, the Cerise fruit ( Flacourtia indica ) was not much of a favourite of mine. First of all, the tree had a lot of picka (thorns) and that was a turn off, because you couldn’t climb the tree readily. Then you had to deal with the fruit itself. There were a lot of seeds to contend with and after wrestling with the seeds in your mouth for a while there wasn’t much “flesh” to eat. Jeezan ages!
But, it was all good and helped us pass time. Purpled tongues and maybe a bit of “rack” or “tie tongue” sensation in our mouths was commonplace between my friends and I as we raided a Cerise tree or two. And, it would have been short lived anyway because by then Pommerac would have been in season and the Pommerac tree would have been laden with fruit, boughs almost to touch the ground, straining under the weight, begging us to ease its burden lol!……
Those were the days. The seedy Cerise fruit left an indelible taste memory in my mind and I cannot get it out of my head. That’s where the idea for the wine came or rather popped into my mind one day. So, while up in the countryside mom got my nephew to pick some of the fruit to make some Cerise wine since it was not commonly done at home. We were accustomed to more passion fruit, rice, cashew, guava, pommerac and five finger wine, made just in time for the Christmas season. So off to another wine making adventure we went……
…….As I held the bottle of red tinged Cerise wine up against the light to admire the colour, I sighed. It was worth it, one sip and the fruitiness was there like I remembered when I was young; pastelle shades of flavour tingled my taste buds and evoked all those taste memories that were locked away; waiting for the right time; the right stimulus; to be alive again if but for a moment taking you down memory lane.
Five Finger Wine
Wine from plants, barks and flowers??? Yep, that’s right. We have taken plants like the famous Chadon Beni (Eryngium Foetidum), Aloes ( Aloe vera), Timarie ( Neptunia Aquatica ), the aphrodisiac bark Bois Bande ( Roupala Montana ) and even Hibiscus flowers to make wine. Personally, I haven’t tasted the chadon beni and timarie but common ones like guava, passion fruit, cashew, cane, rice etc I have had at one time or another while house paranging, at a lime or from friends…. I even heard of some people using dasheen to make wine….in fact I think we Trinis could take almost anything to make wine LOL!!
Anyhow, today I’m going to show you how to make five finger wine. From the looks of it though, you could substitute the five finger with any other fruit and make any other type of wine as well. The steps are simple to follow; just make sure everything is sterilized with hot water. Here’s five finger ( carambola, star fruit) wine. Enjoy the fruitiness!
Salut Salut!
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