Fine Red Ratifia

Mash together in a tub or pan, three pounds of black cherries, two of ripe red gooseberries, and one of raspberries, or mulberries; mix with these a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon, and twenty-four cherry kernels, previously well pounded in a mortar, with a pint of syrup: put all into a jar, stop it close, and keep it for fen days in a heat of about ninety degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer: then press it through a clean napkin, let it stand twenty-four hours, and add to each quart of juice a pint of good brandy; next day strain it through a flannel bag, that it may be quite clear.

Observations

The French liqueurs are in general very badly imitated here, from our substituting bitter almonds for peach and apricot kernels, and common proof spirit for their fine Cogniac brandy.

Cherry Brandy

To a pound of ripe Morella cherries mashed well with your hands, add a quart of brandy; let them steep for three days, then press the liquor through a napkin; sweeten it with good lump sugar, let it stand a week in a covered vessel, and then bottle it. This is also the best way of making Raspberry Brandy. (No. 473.)

Curacao

Pour half a pint of boiling water on three ounces of fine thin cut Seville orange-peel that has been dried and pounded in a marble mortar; stop it close: when it is cold, add to it a quart of brandy; let it steep fourteen days: decant it clear, and add to it a quarter pint of clarified sugar; to prepare which, see the next receipt.

Observations

This is the best way of making this best of liqueurs, which is not merely an agreeable cordial, but an essential friend to the stomach.

Clarified Syrup

Put a pound and three quarters (avoirdupois) of fine lump sugar into a clean stewpan, that is well tinned, with one pint of cold spring water, and set it over a moderate fire: beat about the sixth part of the white of an egg with a tablespoonful of cold water; put it to the sugar before it gets warm, and stir it well together. Watch it, and when it boils take off the scum; and keep it boiling till no scum rises: when it is perfectly clear, run it through a silk sieve, or a clean napkin: put it into a close stopped bottle; it will keep for months, and is an elegant article on the sideboard for sweetenings.

Capillaire

To a pint of clarified syrup add a wineglass of curacao.

Lemonade In A Minute

Dissolve three quarters of an ounce (avoirdupois) of pulverized crystallized lemon acid (with a few drops of quintessence of lemon-peel, No.408,) in a pint of clarified syrup. Two tablespoonful of this in a pint of water will immediately produce the most agreeable sherbet; the addition of rum or brandy will convert this into Punch Directly. (No. 478.)

Shrub

A quart of brandy, diluted with the expressed filtered juice of two Seville oranges, and the peel of half a one steeped for three days, and half a pound of lump sugar then added to it, and then strained through flannel, produces this very palatable but seductive liquor, incomparably more tempting and insinuating than any of the simple spirits, because, in combination with sweet ingredients, it imperceptibly stimulates, and gradually impairs the digestive organs.