Good Drinking

In a move that surprises no one, the Wall Street Journal is carrying an op-ed piece which is favorable to a large multinational corporation.  The article in question is a defense of Coke by the CEO of the Coca-Cola company, and he wants you to know that the proposed tax on sugary sodas will not work, and will maybe break the entire country and also make puppies sad.  You don't want puppies to be sad, do you?  I didn't think so!

The CEO of Coca-Cola has a good point, which is that legislating behavior - particularly eating behavior - is probably doomed to failure, and possibly anti-American.  But he's a little disingenuous about the deal with the proposed soda tax.

The first thing about this tax is that it's a sin tax.  We as a country tax things deemed "sinful" more heavily than, say, carrots.  For example, taxes are very high on both cigarettes and alcohol. These are products which are undeniably bad for you.  They are also products which are discretionary purchases. (Although having quit smoking only a few months ago, I will forgive you for protesting that cigarettes aren't "discretionary" any more than heroin is discretionary for a junkie.  But let us agree that no one NEEDS cigarettes in order to continue to exist, the same way that we NEED water, air, and so forth.)

Are sugary sodas like Coke and Pepsi both discretionary and undeniably bad for you?  Yes on both counts.  In fact, in racing to Coke's defense, Mr. Kent can only say that "Even soft drinks with sugar, like Coca-Cola, contain no more calories (140 calories in a can) than some common snacks, breakfast foods and most desserts served up daily in millions of American homes."  I literally stopped and laughed out loud at that line.  Saying that your product is "no worse than a Twinkie" or "no worse than a sack of Oreos"?  Really?  That's what you're going with?  Okay.  

I am reminded of the state of Idaho's license plate slogan, "Famous Potatoes."  If that's the best you've got, then I am really really sorry.

The second thing about this tax is that it is an attempt to use economics to influence behavior.  Time after time we have found that economic theory can solve problems faster, and more completely, than any other method.  It can be shown over and over that cash money is the only thing that motivates people to make changes.  When Canada tripled the cost of a pack of cigarettes, the smoking rate went down by a third.  When gas prices go up, people suddenly don't want to buy SUVs.  Let's face it; money talks.

Now, Mr. Coke does have an excellent point, which is that sugary sodas are probably not the greatest contributor to our increased daily caloric intake.  Most people place that blame at the feet of perfectly normal foods which somehow now contain high fructose corn syrup for no earthly reason.

However, were we to institute a steep tax on everything that contained HFCS, I'm sure the manufacturers of Wheat Thins would make the same protest as Mr. Coke.  "It's difficult to understand why the beverages we and others provide are being targeted as the primary cause of weight gain when 94.5% of caloric intake comes from other foods and beverages," Mr. Coke says. As does every other manufacturer.  This is a collective problem, and sadly, Coke is part of that collective.

This has been a prime year for home canning and preservation - aside from anecdotal evidence (everyone I know is canning stuff), I recently read that the sales of Ball glass mason jars is up 30% this year over last!  Now that the growing season is coming to an end, the transition into fall has brought a predictable transition in food preservation as well.  It's time to make fruit wine!

Elderberry and blackberry wine are the fruit wines most people are familiar with.  But you can make fruit wine out of any fruit (literally any - there is a winery in Hawaii which is famous for producing pineapple wine).  Traditionally the softer fruits like cherries and plums tended to be made into fruit wines more often, because it was the best way to preserve these tender fruits in the era before freezers and electricity were invented.

By the way, it is legal to make your own wine at home in America.  In 1978 the US Government legalized home winemaking, with volume restrictions.  A household with one adult may produce up to 100 gallons of wine per year.  A household with two adults may produce up to 200 gallons per year.  Obviously you are not allowed to sell the wine, or to give it to underage minors.

(The difference between wine and moonshine is that wine and beer are fermented homemade alcoholic beverages.  Moonshine and its ilk are distilled homemade alcoholic beverages.  Winemaking and homebrewing beer is okay.  Distilling alcoholic beverages using a still?  Not okay.)

Fruit wine has a lesser reputation compared to "real wine," partly because we have become a culture of wine snobs.  This SF Gate article on fruit wines refers to "grandpa's wine."  But it must be admitted that fruit wine tends to be sticky sweet, and can have a distinctive cough syrup overtones.  Many home winemakers drink their wines more like a port or a sherry - in a small glass, as an aperitif or an after-meal dessert.

To make your own fruit wine, you will need a lot (a LOT) of fruit, a fair amount of sugar (2-5 pounds), a sterile container (this can be a plastic bucket) for the first fermentation, a serious container like a carboy with a fermentation lock for the second fermentation, and (eventually) wine bottles and corks.

The basic process is:

1.    Cook down all of the ingredients on the stovetop into a syrup.
2.    Pour into the first sterile container, for the first fermentation, until most of the major bubbling has subsided.  This process takes a few days.
3.    Strain it and decant into a carboy with a fermentation lock and set it somewhere dark for the second fermentation.  This takes six months to a year.
4.    Once it's finished, pour the wine into bottles and cork them (this is called "racking").

The Herbwife's Kitchen has a basic overview of her elderberry wine recipe, which is a great overview of the home fruit wine-making process.  Jack Keller's winemaking website is one of the better in-depth internet resources for home winemaking (scroll down past all the bits and bobs on the main page to get to the meaty content).