I’ve made homebrew beer and cider since I was 17  years old and it’s a revivalistic pastime that I find both sublimely soothing and pleasantly challenging. That first uncapping of one of your own beers coupled with the little pleasant mist of Carbon Dioxide that hovers around the opening is a wonderful after-ripple of reward in exchange for your toils.

My brewing tutor and long time pal, Phill Hollingworth has passed onto me two of my most revered books on the subject of home-brewing and home wine-making. These are absolute classics in terms of form, illustrations, recipes, tone, heritage, content and sheer nostalgia. This one (which I have just received: ‘Homemade Country Wines‘ by Dorothy Wise) focuses on a series of cottage-style booze making recipes collected from Farmer’s weekly circa 1973… Slap bang in the middle of the ‘Good-life’ era of home thrift.

The cover and inside content features small but wholesome line illustrations by Gay John Galsworthy (yes, that is his name) who also produced artwork for some other great titles of the era which I’m after. The typography is set clumsily and heavy on toast coloured pages that feel as if they have been left open at the table whilst a pan of elderberries simmered on a hob on some distant restless summer evening. I love this book already. It’s charming, innocuous and the knowledge kept inside is honest and giving.

I’ve already earmarked a rather dangerous excursion into following an ancient Anglo Saxon recipe for a drink called Metheglin – A sort of spiced mead that at full strength caused odd visual distortions.

Hmmm. Perfect.