Rhubarb Champage

I wanted to do something a little different from the usual Rhubarb Meringue pie with the rhubarb from the garden, so after a trawl around the 'net, I came across this recipe, but there are lots of different options out there.

Ingredients

• 800g rhubarb 
• 600g sugar
• 2 lemons
• 12 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 4.5 L water

The instructions are simplicity themselves:

Chop rhubarb 1cm and finely slice lemon and mix all ingredients into container and let sit for a couple of days or longer (depends on temp). Double strain into bottles (I always use at least one plastc bottle - when it is tight I let a bit of fizz off them all).
They are supposed to be ready after 6 weeks but ours are all finished before then - we drink it from first fizz. 

I made up a batch of this on  using rhubarb that I'd collected over a number of weeks and stored in the freezer (just collect from garden, wash, chop and put into zip lock bags). The freezing of the rhubarb helps to tenderise it as it defrosts, which saves a bit of effort and seems to improve the flavour.

Did a 50-50 split sugar and dextrose as I had some left over from beer brewing. Doubled the batch size as there was plenty of rhubarb in the freezer. Also, used 4 grapefruit from the garden instead of the lemons.

The initial batch before adding the water looked like this

Then added the 9 litres of water to make up the full batch 

And left it in a warm spot for 3 days, after which it looked like this

Strained it from the demi-john in a container, 4 litres at a time

I probably haven't strained it finely enough but I think I kept most of the fruit out

Tasted very refreshing with the grapefruit coming through strongly, but expecting them to mellow over time. Finally, bottle them in sterilsed PET bottles, will put them somewhere dark for a few weeks and will report back on the outcome.