I got sad the other day when I saw a social media post where a woman with gray hair said that "once your hair turns gray, you become invisible."

My in-laws adored their family matriarch, "Gram" or "Grammy." She was definitely not invisible, and she definitely had pretty white hair. So it was natural for us to put a granny on our Elderberry Fire Cider label.

Using Farm Grown Ingredients

Our Elderberry Fire Cider starts out as organic Granny Smith (another not-invisible granny!) apples. An organic orchard in upstate New York presses granny smith apples into cider, and we then ferment it into apple cider vinegar. 

In the beginning, I researched all the possible ingredients for making a Fire Cider, and selected those ingredients we could grow here: elderberries, onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, horseradish, and hot peppers. Lots of test batches later, and I got the right proportions of each ingredient. Here I am harvesting garlic.

Other ingredients that got cut from our list were: oranges, rosemary, basil, pineapple, and lemons.

Fire Cider is also known as an oxymel, from the Latin "oxys" meaning sharp or pungent, and "mel" meaning honey. So in addition to vinegar and vegetables, I added honey. And of course elderberries!

We had pressed these elderberries of their first run of juice to make Elderberry Apple Shots and Elderberry Juice. There is a lot of life left in those first pressed berries, and the vinegar did a great job of naturally extracting more juice from them. But not too much as to overpower the other ingredients.

Finally, we allowed the ingredients to infuse and mellow. 

Making Fire Cider at Home

It's not hard to make an Elderberry Oxymel, or Elderberry Fire Cider at home but it does take time. It's a slow food, glorious when it's finished! Start with a large glass container, add apple cider vinegar, clean, chopped or diced vegetables and herbs, and cover it with a cheesecloth. Make sure the veggies and herbs are completely submerged.

Don't use plastic or aluminum. Glass only. Don't used distilled vinegar, it will taste horrible. Raw apple cider vinegar is perfect.

Wait about 6 weeks and strain the vegetables and herbs out. It's best to make this in the non-fruit-fly season. Here in Connecticut, that is November through June. Fruit flies can be attracted to the vinegar during the 6-week infusing time. 

After straining out the roughage, add honey to your taste. Refrigerate the final product. Some people drink fire cider straight -- when I give tastings of our Elderberry Fire Cider, about half of the tasters love it straight out of the cup. But the other half prefer it mixed with something else -- it's too strong on its own. However you consume it, think of it as "aged to perfection", just like our amazing Grannies.