Dandelion Wine Workshop

** If this interests you, please REGISTER ASAP. This season class is only offered once a year! ** Dandelion Wine: it’s not just a Ray Bradbury novel, it’s a tasty wine that dates back to the European Middle Ages as a poor-man’s wine. Is it then any wonder that this tasty wine followed immigrants to the far-flung Great Plains and Appalachia? Like any recipe that’s been around for hundreds of years, everyone and their grandma has a recipe with its own special nuances. Your instructor has been bequeathed his great-great-grandma’s handwritten dandelion recipe, penned in her swooping hand along with other family concoctions. If the conversion of flowers and water into wine seems magical, alchemical, and beyond the reaches of moral man, if you have a jar, jug, or bucket and a little bit of patience -- you’re half-way there. All you need next is a little bit of sugar and some yeast to gobble up that sugar and convert it to tasty alcohol. Come pick some flowers on the Columbus Garden School grounds like you did in grade school, and get a hands-on instruction on just how easy it is to make this wine at home. We’ll offer advice based on our own brewing experiences, recommendations on where to purchase brewing equipment if you feel so inspired, along with following a recipe from great-great-grandma Gertrude! PRICE OPTIONS Class only - no equipment = $40 Class + fermentation vessel, air lock, and yeast plus dandelions you help gather = $60 Learn how to make this floral wine, along with the basics of wine home-brewing, to get you started on a journey of experimentation, fermentation, and libation. INSTRUCTOR: David Williams was sent to play outside with the neighbor kids and hasn’t come back in for over 20 years. Instead of getting into mischief and building forts in the woods, he now spends his time teaching others about edible plants both native and introduced, brewing his own wine, and writing horror poetry. A wine snob he is NOT, the wine he brews doesn’t even have grapes in it!