Never before in the long, long history of home wine-making has the hobby enjoyed such tremendous popularity as it does today, with thousands of new enthusiasts joining our ranks every week. Fortunately we no longer have to follow antiquated methods and recipes that so often resulted in cloudy wines that would not clear, sour wines, acid wines or wines that turned into vinegar. Nor are we bothered with massive tubs and giant jars and masses of bottles of fermenting wines corked loosely (one of the main causes of spoiled wines) or any of the paraphernalia of the home wine-maker of a few short years ago. Modern methods are quick, clean, simple and sure. The result is perfect wines high in alcohol with that brilliance of clarity users of older methods will not believe until seeing for themselves.

The recipes contained in this book have been evolved by varying methods of mine which have appeared elsewhere in many magazines and which, following more than twenty years of experimenting in wine-making have proved to be the best, not only for making all the well-known home wines but for making genuine Vermouth, both French and Italian, and wines savoring of all the world-famous liqueurs including cherry brandy, Kirsch, Kümmel, Curacao, Morasquin and many others. The lemon gin wine recipe and orange gin wine recipe are the results of my most recent experiments and I take pride in offering them to my readers all over the world. As with all home wines, none of these specialties requires added spirit.

I must record my sincere thanks to the commercial firms who have so kindly supplied me with a variety of ingredients for my experiments, in particular to Semplex, of Old Hall Works, Stuart Road, Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, and to H. J. Ruzicka ('Fermenta'), of 95 Frampton Street, London, N.W.8, to R. H. and Meryl Stoner, and to the chief chemist and manager of a famous British winery (who wish to remain anonymous), for guidance during my early years of winemaking.

H. E. BRAVERY