Milk wine and other Sri Lankan Christmas wines

Making Christmas drinks is a household project in many Burgher, Catholic and other Christian homes. Preparations start in November, when fruit is cut and fermented, ginger is pounded and arrack is set aside for milk wine. By Christmas Eve the bottles are lined up, ready for visitors.

The drinks are part of a wider spread. Christmas cake, rich with fruit, cashews and preserves, sits beside love cake, breudher and sweets such as milk toffee and kokis. A host will often offer a choice of drinks, and children get the soft options.

The names reflect English usage rather than wine-making in the French sense. Wine here means a sweet home-made drink, alcoholic or not, served in a small glass. Grapes are rarely involved, and some bottles have no alcohol at all.

Ginger wine is the most common Christmas drink after milk wine and, in many households, more common. Fresh ginger is crushed and boiled with sugar, often with cloves, cinnamon and lime, then strained. Some families leave it to ferment lightly with yeast, while others keep it as a strong ginger cordial.

The taste is sweet and fiery, with a heat that builds at the back of the throat. Because many versions are non-alcoholic, ginger wine is the drink offered to children, drivers and anyone avoiding alcohol, which makes it an important part of hospitality at Christmas.

Visitors should ask whether a particular ginger wine is fermented. Lightly fermented versions contain some alcohol, usually low, and the label on a home-made bottle will not tell you.

Fruit wines are fermented at home over several weeks. Chopped pineapple, beetroot or grapes are packed into large jars with sugar, water, yeast and sometimes spices, then stirred, left to ferment and strained into bottles. The results vary from light and fruity to strong and sweet.

Pineapple wine is golden and tropical, beetroot wine a vivid deep red, and grape wine, usually made from imported or local table grapes, is sweet and fruity rather than like a commercial table wine. Each family guards its timings and proportions.

Home fermentation is less predictable than milk wine. Strength varies, and a batch can turn sour if the jars are not clean. Hosts tend to know which of their bottles came out well that year and will steer guests towards the best one.

Rice wine is made by some families by fermenting rice with sugar, yeast and sometimes raisins or spices. It is pale, sweet and usually fairly strong, and some households make it every year alongside milk wine.

The style differs from the rice wines of East Asia. Sri Lankan Christmas rice wine is sweeter and often flavoured, and it is made in small batches for the household rather than to a fixed recipe.

Like other fermented home wines, rice wine is best tasted in a home where the host knows how it was made. It is rarely sold, and it does not keep as reliably as milk wine.

Milk wine stands apart from the fermented wines in one important way: nothing ferments. The alcohol comes from bought arrack or brandy, and the milk clarifies and softens the drink. That makes milk wine more predictable in strength and longer keeping than the fruit and rice wines.

Milk wine also tends to be the prestige bottle. It takes the most care, uses the most expensive ingredient in the arrack, and is the one hosts are proudest of. It is often brought out for special guests, while ginger wine is poured for everyone.

Lankan Stays & Trails guests invited into homes at Christmas often taste milk wine and ginger wine side by side, which is the best way to understand the difference between a spirit-based liqueur and a home-made cordial or wine.

Most of these drinks are home-made and rarely sold in shops, so the best chance to taste them is an invitation to a home over Christmas. Church fairs and Christmas bazaars in Colombo, Negombo and other towns sometimes sell bottles of ginger wine and milk wine, along with cakes and sweets.

Pace yourself if you are offered several. Strength varies widely between bottles, and sweetness disguises alcohol. A small glass of each, with water and plenty of cake, is the sensible way through a festive afternoon.

Ask before giving any to children. Ginger wine is often the alcohol-free choice, but not always, and hosts will happily tell you which bottle is which.