Wine-making, beer and other drinks

This country possesses an abundance of fruits, flowers, vegetables, herbs and cereals from which palatable and sometimes extremely potent drinks can be fermented. I have good reason to know this, because I was once invited to taste a number of farmhouse wines which my hostess considered had just reached perfection. After a polite sip from several tiny glasses, and a few second pourings to help give a considered opinion, I began to find the kitchen rather warm and my head rather swimmy. Deciding to leave before worse befell, I bent down to retrieve my muddy Wellingtons from beside the stove, subsided among a welter of other people’s boots and some angry Jack Russell terriers, and fell sound asleep.