Rose for grief

Olive for peace

Chamomile for resilience

Sugar for sweetness

Elder for regeneration + wisdom

Sage for healing

Lavender for calm

Lemon for balance

Blue Quartz for hope

May this wine be a drink of peace

So mote it be!

There's a lot of collective grief around the world right now, the headliners and beyond.  A lot of people are hurting, are scared, are angry, are confused, are grieving.

And when you live at the arse end of the world and/or not directly tied to any of the conflicts its easy to feel pretty helpless.

Whilst harvesting elderflowers in the weekend Mother Elder must've whispered to me because I suddenly had this idea of making an intentional wine as a prayer to help heal the collective grief of the world.  A wine that I could develop not to sell but to share the recipe with other wine makers, so we could all make it together as a collective invocation/meditation/ prayer towards healing or at least coping.  Increase the vibe, put our magic out there.

So letting my witchy flag fly high, using my in depth knowledge of herbs, crystals and spell work, oh, and wine! this is the recipe I came up with..

It's based on a "quick and reckless" recipe by John Wright for Sparkling Elderflower Wine from the River Cottage Handbook #12, Booze.  After a 6 day ferment it's ready to be bottled and should be ready to drink after a week!  We're not bothering with hydrometers, so alcohol content will be unknown, I'm guessing it will be around the 4-8% range. 

Elderflowers should be gathered on a sunny day when the florets are open and still yellow in the middle, when you get them home strip the flowers removing as many of the bitter green bits as you can.  The recipe uses a mix of dried and fresh flowers, all relevant to what I have in my garden at the moment (New Zealand) and what I had in my dried herb stash (chamomile), if what I've used fresh you can only get dried, halve the quantity.  After the recipe I'll list some possible herb/fruit alternatives for those in the opposite season to us here in NZ.

And as a heads up, I put my brew down only yesterday so I can't tell you how it's going to taste, it's an intuitive mix based on previous flower wines I've made and what plants called out to me!  So it may need tweaking, tweak away if you feel the need... If you are going to use Blue quartz as well, remember it will need cleansing (and be sanitised) as well as powered up**

Wine for Peace

makes approx 6 x 750ml bottles

• 8 Elderflower sprays (Elder assists with fear and is symbolic of regeneration and wisdom)
• 3 Sage flowers (Sage assists with confusion and symbolic of healing and wisdom)
• 12-16 Lavender heads, I prefer Spanish lavender over French, English could be used too (Lavender assists with anxiety and is relaxing)
• 14 dried Rose buds partially but not really open, I use the small climbing rose buds, you could also use Turkish rosebuds from a specialist store (Rose helps open the heart to release and cope with grief)
• 2g dried Olive leaves, I've not used olive leaf before so I'm being judicious in my amount here but it's a terrific herbal medicine for the immune system and circulatory system plus a symbol for peace
• 2 Tablespoons dried German Chamomile (Relaxant and symbolic of energy and patience in adversity)
• Pared zest and juice of 2 lemons
• 900g sugar
• (optional) 1 tumbled Blue Quartz ("Blue Quartz reaches out to others and inspires hope, calms the mind, assuages fear, and assists in understanding your spiritual nature during metamorphosis" Judy Hall)
• 1/2 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 5g Champagne yeast (EC1118 or CL23)

In a sanitised 10L bucket put the dried herbs in.

Bring 2 litres of water to boil with the sugar and pour over the dried herbs, cover and leave for 30 minutes.  Add 2 litres of cold water and let it cool.

When cool add the lemon and fresh herbs.  Drop in sterilised blue quartz that has been activated with intentions of hope and peace.  

Add the yeast nutrient and aerate (stir vigorously) whilst reciting the spell at the top of this page. 

Now, elderflowers have quite a lot of wild yeast themselves so you can trust the fates and see what will happen, or you can add the champagne yeast now.

Leave to ferment for six days, stirring everyday (with sanitised implement) for the first five.  When stirring either recite the spell every time or at least focus your intentions on the wine, peace, hope resilience, wisdom .  (If you opted for the wild yeast and after 3-4 days you don't detect any fermentation add the champagne yeast).

After six days sieve through (boiled) muslin cloth into a fresh bucket.  Let it settle for a few hours then siphon into bottles.

Due to the amount of unknowns this wine can be quite volatile!  Recommend bottling in plastic screw top bottles, flip tops or screw top wine bottles.

Check after a week, ie. unscrew bottle tentatively, over a sink or outside, to see if there's fizz.  If you're nervous about exploding bottles store the wine in the fridge.

Ready to drink once it has got that sparkle!

Possible Variations

Dandelion, Sweet Violet and Borage are other flowers that can assist with grief which could be used in place of the Elderflowers and Rose

Rosemary is good for anxiety which could be used in place of Lavender

Blackthorn is a tree of hope and challenge and can help us see things another way, sloes could be included in this wine or a small amount of the bark which has calming properties

Of course, sage leaves can be used in place of the sage flowers

Rose Quartz could be used in place of Blue Quartz for love and forgiveness.  Remember if it's going in the wine it must be tumbled, and no crystal that contains copper should go in your wine (like say, Malachite).  You could place crystals around your fermenting bucket rather than inside

NB If you don't drink alcohol, you could still join us by making an intentional tea

**Activating Your Crystal

Very basic instructions here!

Firstly cleanse your crystal through running water or smudge.  If going in your wine it will need to be sanitised with whatever you sanitise your bucket and equipment with.

Holding the crystal in your hands imagine a white light surrounding the stone and focus your intention on what you want to use the stone for (I focused on hope) once it feels right, say out loud "I program this crystal for hope (and or whatever you're vibing with)"

Let's Do This!

Please let me know if you're making this, either here in the comments or on one of my social media posts and share this far and wide with anyone you think would love to be part of this wine action for healing.  It would be very cool if this gained traction and we could organise a virtual drink together, raising our glasses in solidarity, doing what we can to help with grief, anxiety, confusion, engender wisdom, hope, resilience, regeneration, love, healing and peace ~

So mote it be!