Making milk wine for a crowd

The simplest way to scale milk wine is to think per bottle of arrack. Most family recipes are already written this way. For each 750 ml bottle, allow 500 to 750 ml of full-cream milk, 400 to 500 g of sugar, four to six limes, two cinnamon sticks, six to eight cloves and four to six cardamom pods.

Spices do not always need to scale exactly. Cloves in particular can become overpowering in a large batch, so many cooks use slightly fewer per bottle when making five or more. Taste the steeped spirit before mixing and adjust.

Keep careful notes. A large batch is a big investment in arrack, and a record of what you did makes next year easier.

One bottle of arrack makes roughly 1.2 to 1.5 litres of milk wine, so five bottles make about six to seven litres and ten bottles about 12 to 14 litres. The exact yield depends on how much milk and syrup you add and how much liquid stays in the curds.

At about 35 ml a glass, six to seven litres fills 170 to 200 small glasses. A family receiving fifty visitors over Christmas, each having one or two glasses, would need roughly three to four bottles of arrack worth, with some left to give away.

Church fairs and home sellers often bottle in smaller sizes, such as 375 ml, which makes a big batch go further as gifts.

Large batches need large vessels. Steep the arrack in several big glass jars or a clean food-grade bucket with a lid. Mix in a large stockpot or food-grade bucket that holds the spirit, syrup, juice and milk with room to spare.

Boil the milk in batches if you do not have a pan big enough, and pour each batch in as it boils. Make caramel in two or three smaller lots rather than one huge pan, which is hard to control and dangerous.

Set up several straining stations, each with a sieve or funnel lined with muslin over a bowl or bucket. Straining is the bottleneck, and parallel setups save hours.

A big batch takes more time at every stage. Juicing thirty limes and paring their peel takes an hour or more. Boiling milk in batches adds time on mixing day. Straining can take a full day or longer.

Space matters too. Several straining setups need a cool, quiet area where they can drip undisturbed. Many families use a spare room or a shaded verandah, covered against insects.

Plan the work across a long weekend, and recruit help. In many Sri Lankan homes, making the Christmas milk wine is a family job, with children juicing limes and adults handling the hot milk and caramel.

Large batches are more prone to cloudiness, mainly because the temptation to hurry is greater. Rest the curds overnight, ladle gently, pour back the first runnings, and never squeeze.

Strain in manageable portions. Overfilling a cloth with curds slows the drip and encourages squeezing. Several half-full cloths work better than one overloaded one.

A second straining through paper filters is worth the extra time for a batch you plan to give away or sell, where clarity is part of the impression.

Many families make extra milk wine to give as Christmas gifts, often with a box of Christmas cake. Small, attractive bottles with a handwritten label make a much appreciated present.

Selling alcohol in Sri Lanka requires a licence, so anyone planning to sell milk wine at a fair should check the position with the organisers. Lankan Stays & Trails advises visitors buying at fairs to choose established stalls and ask how the milk wine was made.

Making milk wine for a crowd is hard work, but it is also one of the pleasures of a Sri Lankan Christmas, and a big batch on the shelf means every visitor can be welcomed properly.