If you're a friend of mine, I'm sorry, but I'm about to spoil your Christmas present. You're getting my homemade corncob wine. Now get that look off your face -- it's actually pretty darned tasty, and if you don't believe me, at least trust the palates of James Beard Award winning cookbook authors and Lowcountry culinary ambassadors Matt and Ted Lee. I nabbed this method from The Lee Bros. Southern Cooking, and thought the first batch turned out so well, it was worthy of a second gallon's brewing a few weeks later.



I sliced the top of a clean one-gallon water jug, leaving a swath of uncut plastic to act as a hinge on the handled side, and an opening large enough to admit a corncob. Then I cut the kernels from eight ears of fresh, fulsome Scoharie County corn and set them aside to pickle with turmeric and mace (yup - another Lee Bros. recipe). I packed the cobs into the jug, and in a separate bowl, dissolved one teaspoon of sugar in two tablespoons warm water, gently stirred in a packet of yeast, and let it sit for a few minutes.

I boiled three quarts of water in a stockpot and dissolved two cups of sugar once I'd removed it from the heat. Once it was cool enough to touch, I poured the water over the cobs until it was about half an inch from the jug's rim, and added the yeast. Then I tucked the whole mess away in a pantry, visiting it every once in a while to see if it was still chattering at me.



The popping stopped after about two weeks, and I decanted the jug's contents into a pitcher, then strained it through a fine sieve to remove any stray bits of hull. It smelled heady -- of yeast and corn and summer, and that has not lessened over time. Poured into Ball jars and left to sit quietly in the fridge while the yeast settled at the bottom, the wine's flavor mellowed to a slightly honky-tonk Riesling, with subtle, sweet notes of the harvest from which it came.

And aw shucks, does it go down smoothly.

Visit mattleeandtedlee.com to learn more about the book.