The Cottage Smallholder

Marrows were half price in the supermarket last weekend. I hovered by the stand, wickedly tempted. It wasn’t the prospect of stuffed marrow that had this magic effect. We have completed stage one of our marrow rum experiment. It has finally been transferred to a demi john and is now skulking in the airing cupboard. It smells delicious, just like rum.

Suddenly I joined those triumphant Neanderthals who discovered they had inadvertently made something delicious. When I appeared in The Rat Room with a very long plastic bucket and a marrow trussed up in an old pillowcase, Danny looked a bit alarmed.

Following instructions he lifted the lid of the bucket and tentatively sniffed.
“It smells like rum. But you put rum in it, didn’t you?”
Some people do. I had just used innocent ingredients, the juice of an orange, a giant bag of Demerara sugar and some wine yeast. I don’t think that D believed me.

I continued to follow the instructions from the Selfsufficientish forum for stage two. Adding the juice, marrow flesh and topping up the demi john with boiled (cold) water and more yeast. I came down in the morning to an airlock that was being stretched to the limit. There was hardly a gasp between glugs. The marrow mixture had bubbled into the airlock and was seeping into the kitchen carpet.

My instant response as I eased the demijohn into the bath was,
“Thank goodness we haven’t just cleaned the carpets.”

In fact that’s been my response to every slip and spill for the past eighteen months. I am certain that if carpet cleaning companies ran the country they would ban marrow rum. It seems to have removed all other odours and greets me every morning with a faintsweet, rummy aroma.

The marrow rum has lived in the bath for the last two weeks. Companionable and rumbustious Danny moved a small island of newspaper onto the floor. After a week of wondering why this old newspaper was lurking in the bathroom I suddenly twigged that it was the MR demi john landing stage. I hadn’t bothered to remove the presence when I showered – just corralled it at the far end of the bath. I rather enjoyed the conversational glugs as I washed. If you move a demi john it generally becomes more chatty.

Now the MR has calmed down a bit and has been moved to its final resting place. In a year or so it will make a dramatic appearance. The Selfsufficientish forum warned not to pour more than a small glass per person unless you have enough beds for everyone.

Perhaps after stage three (tasting and bottling) this one will not be on general release. We’ve only one spare bed after all.

  Leave a reply