It has been a while since my last post, and it does really feel like a long time ago. After the two nights of frost I wrote about, the weather warmed up considerably again and now the whole garden is just confused. It looks like spring almost!

The Rhubarb I grew from seed last year has grown to massive proportions, throwing up new, succulent stems. It would be a waste not to use at least some of them until winter really does arrive. A few months ago I already tried this recipe and although I didn’t get the proportions quite right, it still turned out pretty tasty. It’s a sparkling drink (hence the name) but it doesn’t really contain any alcohol. Not enough to have an effect anyway.

Rhubarb Champagne

4 cups of chopped up Rhubarb – wash but don’t peel

4 cups of sugar

25 cups of water

1 chopped up lemon

1 cup of white vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a large non reactive container (so that means: plastic, glass, ceramic but not metal) making sure the sugar has dissolved properly and let it infuse for 48 hours or until the rhubarb turns soft (depending on the ambient temperature, this may take A LOT longer than 48 hours.) Keep stirring it regularly throughout this period.

Rhubarb infusing in water & sugar mixture (after a week)

Then strain out all the bits of rhubarb and lemon and fill the liquid into plastic bottles. Let it mature for a few days. You will notice that the bottles may deform a bit as gas builds up inside – if you want to use glass bottles instead, you should use champagne bottles because they are made of thicker glass. Thinner glass bottles might just explode. I like to carefully open the bottles every day or sometimes twice a day to let the extra pressure escape. Within a few days you will see that the champagne has turned fizzy. As you leave it longer, more of the sugar content gets used up by the yeast that naturally lives on the rhubarb stems. So it might be a good idea to keep tasting it regularly to see when you like the amount of fizz and sweetness of the champagne.

When it’s ready, keep it in the fridge to prevent it from maturing further.

UPDATE: It’s now over a week later and I’ve still not strained and bottled the champagne because due to the cold weather I don’t feel the rhubarb has infused enough. So much for the 48h infusion time in the original recipe…