On Feb 20, 12:55 pm, wrote:
> 3) Has anyone tried bottling a cooking wine like this with a pepper in
> the bottle?

This past fall I put Serrano peppers (sliced) under several liquids
(in different jars) as a test. It's been 5 months so far and they all
are in good shape. I put them under some home made malt vinegar, wine,
sherry, gin, and some beer I made (about 5%). The peppers lost a
little color but show no other degradation. They are not mushy (yet?).
Some I pretreated by giving them a strong brine soak for 24 hours, and
some I did not. The brine doesn't seem to have made any difference.

If you put peppers in the bottle, I would make a couple of
suggestions:
1) Don't do all the bottles. That way if it doesn't work, you still
have some left
2) Use only pristine peppers that will easily fit inside the bottle
for that. Cut a little off the end of the stem so you have a clean cut
that fluid can flow through.
3) Slit the pepper as others have mentioned to allow them to fill with
fluid. I would slit it on the bottom and top. You might want to
consider injecting them full of wine before putting them in the
bottle.
4) You might try blanching the peppers in a few of the bottles to see
if that improves color retention of the pepper.

I plan on making a Serrano pepper wine based on the Jack Keller recipe
for jalapeños once I get a fermenter freed up. I'm curious to know how
your wine turns out. Sounds like a tasty combination - both of those
things have tons of flavor (heat aside).

--Jeff