Christmas foodie presents.

Oh, oh, oh!
This is the most exciting two weeks of the year.
Since we all decided as a family to cut down on the bought and make up with the made....
I've been on a foodie jaunt.

Do you remember those cherries that I was able to pick off the tree that Sydney gave us,  Alan's dad ?
Well it was the first time that we actually had a harvest from it .
Syd didn't think that it was ever going to produce, so Alan had  dug it up from his dad's garden and planted it in our's.
This actually happened regularly with Syd. He wasn't the most patient man as far as fruit trees went.
Well he wasn't the most patient man...full stop.  Sadly he died shortly after that.
But,  to Syd goes all the credit for buying this tree, as now I can make Cherry Brandy from the produce!

Over the months I had regularly turned the bottle upside down to make sure that all of the sugar was dissolved in the brandy.

I choose some interesting bottles .

These  get a good scrub with a toothbrush on a stick...to get into the corners, and are then filled with boiling water, to sterilise them.

Then the careful pouring of the ruby coloured liquid begins.

I'm careful not to lose a drop.

And I pour until all the cherries are freed, and the delicious nectar is safely in the bottles.

Then all that is left to do is to label and hide them until christmas morning.

Oh...and have a little snifter of a glass myself ...just to make sure that it has been successful.

Yes we're on a winner! 

Now there's just the blackberry whiskey, the  damson gin and the summer fruit topf to sort out.

.....honestly woman!....