Where Grape, Grain, Even Guava Are Fodder for Fermentation

Kathi Horton can’t help but screw up her face a bit when she remembers the first time she tasted garlic wine.

“It was just so . . . strong ,” she said. “I almost couldn’t help gagging.”

And then there was the tomato wine, and the kiwi and guava wine, and the parsnip wine and the pyracantha wine and the onion wine.

“You can make wine from anything that grows,” Horton said.

She should know. After all, when you’re the majordomo of Orange County’s home wine makers and beer brewers, you get to taste the occasional cockeyed concoction.

Horton has been running Fun Fermentations, a home wine- and beer-making supply store in Orange, for nearly 16 years. As the only such retail shop in the county, it has become the favorite stop of amateur brewers and vintners, who can stock up on anything from several varieties of British malt to pub towels to neon beer signs to more than two dozen sizes and types of corks.

“I get a new person started on wine-making or brewing nearly every day,” Horton said. “And their first reaction when they taste what they’ve made is that they can’t believe that it’s as good as it is.”

A significant part of the appeal of home brewing and wine-making, said Horton, is the opportunity to stock your cellar (or garage) with a lot of high-quality liquid for not a lot of money. For the beginner, the initial outlay for equipment and ingredients is $50 to $60, Horton said. About $50 worth of wine grapes will yield 5 to 7 gallons of wine, she said, and amateur brewers, using beer ingredient kits priced at less than $10, can turn their suds out at 5 to 10 cents a bottle.

However, she said, most of her customers whip up their stuff because they like the taste of their own handiwork, and like to keep their friends’ glasses filled as well.

“It’s a very rewarding hobby,” she said, “because you get to surprise your friends. And you’ll find that you have friends you never knew about once you start passing out samples.”

That is, of course, if the friends don’t pass out first. Horton pointed out that because home wine makers or brewers can adjust their potions to suit their tastes, some of the results can be as powerful as they are tasty. Home-brewed beer, for instance, can be several times stronger than the beer that lines California’s refrigerator shelves.

Brewers are Horton’s steadiest customers because beer can be made throughout the year. With the arrival of spring, however, the wine makers begin to arrive, ready to crush the new fruits into fruit wine. In late summer and early fall, when many local wineries begin their harvest, Horton arranges with Hart Winery of Temecula to deliver several varieties of red and white wine grapes.

The grapes are dropped off on Saturdays at a nearby parking lot, where Horton sets up a large machine that crushes grapes and removes the stems. Home vintners who place grape orders through the shop are entitled to use the machine free of charge when the grapes are delivered, she said.

Horton said she also loans out corking and capping machines to her customers free of charge for overnight or weekend use.

Some of those customers become devotees. Nearly 300 amateur vintners are on the membership rolls of the Orange County Wine Society, a nonprofit group started by Horton’s husband in 1976. And a group of brewers known as the Barley Bandits meets monthly at the shop to swap beer recipes and sample the results.

Fun Fermentations’ customers, said Horton, are inveterate brew-it-yourselfers, but they often don’t stop at beer and wine. So, in corners of her shop, Horton provides several different types of coffee beans for home grinding, sourdough starter for home bread bakers and even cheese-making kits. She also sells liqueur extracts and kits for making different varieties of vinegar.

But, she said, as long as apricots and plums ripen in Orange County back yards, and as long as malt, barley, hops and yeast can be combined to make a beverage, beer and wine will be Fun Fermentations’ big business.

“After all,” she said, pointing to the variety of malts, yeast cultures and dried fruits for fermentation, “you never run out of recipes.”

FUN FERMENTATIONS AT A GLANCE

Where: 640 E. Katella Ave., Orange

Phone: 532-6831

Items in stock: All equipment necessary for home brewing and wine-making. Educational books on the subjects, as well as bar items and accessories, neon beer signs, coffee beans and grains.

Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.