I was also fascinated with this dark and brooding song back in the 1970's. But I also noticed a reference to "lilac wine" in the song and thought to myself, "I bet this would be interesting to drink!" Now I grew up on a farm and did know how to make dandelion wine and it seemed to me one could follow the old family recipe and come up with something really special. Well, we harvested a bunch of nice fresh lilac blossoms, mixed them up with raisons and sugar, boiled it up, and poured it into a 5-gallon jug with an air trap and let it bubble away for a month or two. Then we bottled it and let it age. After a year or so we drew the cork of one bottle and I never smelled anything so vile. We poured the rest of it down the drain.

The moral of this sad story is never trust a contemporary folk singer for advice on what should go into making a good wine.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble