Vin de Noix update

The house smells like nuts this afternoon. We've bottled the vin de noix. If I were a mouse, I'd have already waddled up to the little hole in the neighbors' kitchen fireplace upstairs and stuck my nose out far enough to get a good whiff and then plunged headlong down into the darkness to land in our fireplace. This happened one year, and luckily, Sister captured the mouse that fell. She does not have any teeth, being an old cat. She's not a predator, in fact she's afraid of anything that moves, but she knows when another animal does not belong in our house. She tries very hard to do what is expected of her. She caught him, he was just a baby mouse, gave him enough of a scare to keep him from running away, and called for us to come and take care of the situation. Good kitty.


Weeks of bottle watching are over. They had good bottles cheap at the olive oil store. I finally settled on those. They'll do very well as gifts once I spruce them up with a label and maybe some raffia. The shape reminds me of those old time elixer bottles we used to find at the fleamarket back home. For the vin de noix, my first choice would have been pots lyonnais. But they were just too expensive. What's the use of making your own holiday gifts if you're not going to save any money?

The vin de noix has turned as black as tar in the two months it's been resting. In an attempt to remove as much sediment as possible from the final jars, I strained it through a French press lined with a coffee filter to even further filter it.

The French press was further lined with coffee filter to bottle the vin de noix. The result was still completely opaque and black. It smells and tastes wonderful, with a slight bitterness that will mellow within a month. An amazing legendary home aperetif enthusiast named Foodman in the eGullet Vin de Noix thread managed to get his vin de noix to take on a deep amber color that catches the light. Maybe his nut ratio was different, I'll have to ask him.


Even though I used wine in the mix this year, it is just as dark as it was last year. The flavor, however, is lighter. Still excellent, and in many ways I'll say a much better aperetif wine. What will I do for the packaging? So many possibilities. A cloth pouch with a graphic? Some kind of special paper? A booklet with recipes for drinks? Maybe even recipes for use in cooking and for aperetif treats that go well with the vin de noix? Just a plain white label with calligraphy? A box? Maybe a trio of three different apero drinks for the small bottles. I think the olive oil store has wooden cases that hold 3 bottles. Maybe.

I will try and think of just the thing to bring out the special beauty of these bottles with the packaging.