You’re ready to try your hand at home brewing, but you want to try something unique—and you also have no idea where to start. This is the book for you. Broken into three sections—mead, cider, and herbal wine—you’ll learn what basic equipment you’ll need, what ingredients to have on hand, and author Nancy Koziol will walk you through each step of the process. Along the way, you’ll pick up some fun facts about ethical consumption, sustainable farming, and the science behind fermenting. Whether you want to try a simple honey mead, a crisp apple or pear cider, or a wild wine with herbs foraged from your backyard, in these pages you’ll find the inspiration and instruction you need to follow through to the finished product. Many of these drinks are brewed in a matter of weeks rather than months, so you don’t even have to be particularly patient! Once you get the hang of the basics, try experimenting with the suggested seasonal additions, or whatever fruit, herb, or spice is ready for harvest (or on sale at the local market). Add some ginger to your cider, some blackberries to your wine, or some pumpkin to your mead for brews that are truly your own. With a unique focus on local, seasonal produce and sustainable farming practices, this will appeal to seasoned brewers who are looking for something new as well as eco-conscious millennials ready to impress their friends on Instagram. Fascinating tidbits of trivia, information on health benefits, and a dash of humor make this book as entertaining as it is useful.

This accessible home-brew guide for alcoholic and non-alcoholic fermented drinks, from Apartment Therapy: The Kitchn's Emma Christensen, offers a wide range of simple yet enticing recipes for Root Beer, Honey Green Tea Kombucha, Pear Cider, Gluten-Free Sorghum Ale, Blueberry-Lavender Mead, Gin Sake, Plum Wine, and more. You can make naturally fermented sodas, tend batches of kombucha, and brew your own beer in the smallest apartment kitchen with little more equipment than a soup pot, a plastic bucket, and a long-handled spoon. All you need is the know-how. That’s where Emma Christensen comes in, distilling a wide variety of projects—from mead to kefir to sake—to their simplest forms, making the process fun and accessible for homebrewers. All fifty-plus recipes in True Brews stem from the same basic techniques and core equipment, so it’s easy for you to experiment with your favorite flavors and add-ins once you grasp the fundamentals. Covering a tantalizing range of recipes, including Coconut Water Kefir, Root Beer, Honey–Green Tea Kombucha, Pear Cider, Gluten-Free Pale Ale, Chai-Spiced Mead, Cloudy Cherry Sake, and Plum Wine, these fresh beverages make impressive homemade offerings for hostess gifts, happy hours, and thirsty friends alike.

Make extraordinary homemade wines from everything but grapes! In this refreshingly unique take on winemaking, Patti Vargas and Rich Gulling offer 125 recipes for unusual wines made from herbs, fruits, flowers, and honey. Learn to use ingredients from your farmers’ market, grocery store, or even your own backyard to make deliciously fermented drinks. Lemon-Thyme Metheglin, Rose Hip Melomel, and Pineapple-Orange Delight are just the beginning of an unexplored world of delightfully natural wild wines. Cheers!

Easy to brew, easy to customize, and enormously delicious! Looking for a crisp, clean, and scrumptious alternative to beer? On a gluten-free diet or allergic to the grains used in brewing beer? Want to experience the pride that comes when your friends crack open one of your bottles and exclaim, "You made this?" Then welcome to the world of hard cider. Suddenly it's everywhere--it's on the menu in pubs and restaurants, and there's a dizzying array of ciders available in stores. And some cider lovers, just like craft beer drinkers, are looking for ways to create their own brew. The Everything Hard Cider Book takes you step by step into the fermentation and bottling process, with tips on finding the proper equipment, sourcing ingredients, varying flavors, and creating unique packaging. You'll also find advice on advanced techniques, like evaluating the finished product, varying recipes for your own taste, and even growing fruit for cider. And with thirty-five essential and adaptable recipes for apple and other fruit ciders, you'll find everything you need to make your own distinctive and delicious beverages.

A complete, practical, and entertaining guide to using the best ingredients and minimal equipment to create flavorful brews—including wildcrafted meads, bragots, t’ej, grog, honey beers, and more! "A great guide . . . full of practical information and fascinating lore."—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation Ancient societies brewed flavorful and healing meads, ales, and wines for millennia using only intuition, storytelling, and knowledge passed down through generations―no fancy, expensive equipment or degrees in chemistry needed. In Make Mead Like a Viking, homesteader, fermentation enthusiast, and self-described “Appalachian Yeti Viking” Jereme Zimmerman summons the bryggjemann of the ancient Norse to demonstrate how homebrewing mead―arguably the world’s oldest fermented alcoholic beverage―can be not only uncomplicated but fun. Inside, readers will learn techniques for brewing: Sweet, semi-sweet, and dry meads Melomels (fruit meads) Metheglins (spiced meads) Ethiopian t’ej (honey wine) Flower and herbal meads Bragots Honey beers Country wines Viking grog And there's more for aspiring Vikings to explore, including: The importance of local and unpasteurized honey for both flavor and health benefits What modern homebrewing practices, materials, and chemicals work—but aren’t necessary How to grow and harvest herbs and collect wild botanicals for use in healing, nutritious, and magical meads, beers, and wines How to use botanicals other than hops for flavoring and preserving mead, ancient ales, and gruits The rituals, mysticism, and communion with nature that were integral components of ancient brewing Whether you’ve been intimidated by modern homebrewing’s cost or seeming complexity in the past or are boldly looking to expand your current brewing and fermentation practices, Zimmerman’s welcoming style and spirit will usher you into exciting new territory. Grounded in history and mythology, but―like Odin’s ever-seeking eye―focusing continually on the future of self-sufficient food culture, Make Mead Like a Viking is a practical and entertaining guide for the ages. "Adventurous mead makers or brewers who want to move beyond the basics will find plenty to savor here."—Library Journal

Cocktails good enough to eat! Your favorite food is fresh, local, and homemade—and now your cocktails can be, too! Whether you're plucking fresh mint from your own garden or buying buckets of juicy blackberries from the farmers' market, taking these inspiring ingredients from garden to glass is what Edible Cocktails is all about. And mixing unique, delicious drinks like a Lavender Gin Sour or a Basil Grass Lemon Drop is easier than you think. Just try the following: Plant your own "cocktail garden" Utilize seasonal, fresh farmers' market finds or pluck tasty treasures in the wild Infuse spirits and make homemade liqueurs Create homemade syrups, purees, and jams Use eggs, dairy, and even meat in your cocktail for modern mixology explorations With full-color photographs and more than 100 cocktail recipes, you'll be infusing your life—and your cocktails!&151;with wholesome and homegrown ingredients in no time.

Learn from expert cidermakes how to go from a bushel of crisp apples to your first batch of still cider, avoid common mistakes, and taste like a pro.