Autumn Olive Juice

Autumn olive makes very good juice- it looks strange as it is milky and slightly pink. Instead of waiting for birds to eat them all and spread this invasive plant even more, I made 4 quarts of juice. Supposedly this fruit contains high amounts of lycopine which makes it very good especially for aging men (it is helping our prostate glands). We also made several gallons of excellent, quite tart apple cider from wild trees.

Grape Juice and Apple Cider

I made all my grapes into juice and the West Newbury Congregational Church is now using my juice for communion. One batch bgurned a tiny bit so I decided to call that "smokey grape juice" and I'm not sharing that with other people. My homemade juice is not so sweet as commercial grape juice. Now, I am on to making apple cider which I freeze rather than can. When I have heated it enough to successfully can it, that ruins the flavor and it tastes like apple juice instead of apple cider. I have read that it is best to use at least three kinds of apples for cider so that is what I do and I have found that it is best to use more tart apples instead of sweeter ones. I'm planning to make dider again this weekend with wild apples which seem to make the very best cider.