This article discusses making honeysuckle wine, a favorite floral, country wine.
The Summer Solstice is upon us in the northern hemisphere. Everything is lush and green, and the air is perfumed with the scent of summer flowers. It is the time that I most love making flower wines like this recipe for honeysuckle wine. Summer flowers are plentiful and ther’s no end to the floral country wines you can make.
The reason I most love honeysuckle wine is that it really captures the essence of early summer. It’s soft and subtle alone and absolutely delicious in summer wine coolers. Caution: Use only the blossoms of the vines; the berries are poisonous.
This is the time of the year when the sun’s powers are at their absolute height and the solstice plants are brimming with solar energy.
I am lucky enough to have wild honeysuckle growing on my homestead and one of my favorite things to use them for is honeysuckle wine.
The only problem with honeysuckle is that it is highly invasive and spreads very quickly and overtakes everything it touches, rather like kudzu. Therefore, I am unashamed at how many honeysuckle flowers I harvest.
If you are lucky enough to have wild honeysuckle growing near you, then feel free to harvest with wild abandon. This is one plant that you’ll never need to worry about over harvesting.
Lovely recipe! I’m sure you know, but some of your readers may not – there are native types of honeysuckle in the US – I planted two Coral honeysuckle vines in my yard specifically because they are native to my region (southeastern US).
Could this recipe be used with that species of honeysuckle as well?
I am not familiar with that variety of honeysuckle – there are over 180 known varieties. The only two that I’m sure of as being edible (never the berries) are common European honeysuckle and Japanese honeysuckle. That includes the ornamental garden varieties of the two species. I wouldn’t attempt it without being sure of its toxicity.