Cool Tankard, Or Beer Cup

A quart of mild ale, two glasses of white wine, one glass of brandy, one of capillaire, the juice of a lemon, and nutmeg grated on the top, and a sprig of borrage* or balm.

* "Borrage is one of the four cordial flowers;" it comforts the heart, cheers melancholy, and revives the fainting spirits, says Salmon in the 45th page of his "Household Companion" London, 1710. Combined with the other ingredients in the above receipt, we have frequently observed it produce all the cardiac and exhilarating effects ascribed to it by Dr. S.

Cider Cup

Is the same, only substituting the cider for the beer.

Flip

Beat two eggs for about ten minutes, mix half a tablespoonful of moist sugar, and as much grated nutmeg as will lie on a shilling. Put a pint of ale into a saucepan; when it is hot, pour it into a basin to the eggs, etc, and back again into the saucepan, and back again three or four times, till it is quite smooth.

Tewahdiddle

A pint of table beer, a tablespoonful of brandy, two teaspoonsful of brown sugar, or clarified syrup; a little grated nutmeg or ginger may be added, and a roll of lemon-peel.

Observations

Before our readers make any remarks on this composition, we beg of them to taste it; and if their palate does not differ very much from that of its inventor, they will find it one of the most delicious beverages they ever put to their lips.

How To Bottle Beer

When the briskness and liveliness of malt liquors in the cask fail, and they begin to turn dead and vapid, let them be bottled; be careful to use clean and dried bottles ; leave them unstopped for twelve hours, and then cork them as closely as possible with good and sound new corks; put a bit of lump sugar as big as a nutmeg into each bottle : it will be ripe, i. e. fine and sparkling, in about six weeks, if the weather is cold: to put it up, the day before it is to be drank place it in a room where there is a fire.

*** If the beer becomes too hard or stale, a few grains of salt of norm wood added to it at the time, it is drank, to will very muck recover it to its original state,

Rich Raspberry Wine Or Brandy

Bruise the finest ripe raspberries with the back of a spoon, strain them through a flannel bag into a stone jar, allowing a pound of fine powdered loaf sugar to each quart of juice; stir well toge-ther, and cover it down; let it stand for three days, stirring it up each day; pour off the clear, and put two quarts of sherry or Cogniac brandy to each quart of juice: bottle it off: it will be fit for the glass in a fortnight.

Punch

The grand secret, or rather art, of making genuine British punch, consists in the preparation of a rich and delicate sherbet; this being accomplished, with the addition of the best Jamaica rum, or French brandy, and pure hot or cold water; the mixture may be too strong or too Weak, but cannot possibly prove bad punch.

In preparing sherbet for punch, the acids of cream of tartar, tamarinds, and various other prepared vegetable acids, as well as that particularly denominated citric acid, are occasionally employed; but, perhaps, after all, the juices of limes, lemons, and Seville oranges, expressed from the fresh fruits, when attainable, make the sort of sherbet which seems most congenial with the nature of good British punch.

Procure a couple of ripe, sound, and fresh lemons, or limes, and a Seville orange; rub off the yellow rind of one of the lemons with lumps of fine loaf sugar, putting each lump into the bowl as soon as it is saturated or clogged with the essence or grated rind; then thinly pare the other lemon and Seville orange, and put these rinds also into the bowl, to which add plenty of sugar; pour a very small quantity of boiling water, and immediately squeeze the juice of the fruit, followed by a little more hot water. Incorporate the whole well together with a punch ladle; and putting a little of the sherbet thus composed:.try its richness and flavour by the palate. If the fruit be good, a practised punch maker will find little which requires to be regulated, and that little can soon be adjusted by supplying the aqueous, saccharine, or acid deficiencies, so as to produce a luscious and rich bodied sherbet, fit for the reception of the spirit which is to give it animation. If straining should be found necessary, this is the period for using a lawn sieve, through which a little more hot water may afterwards be passed; and a few parings of the orange or lemon rind are generally considered as having an agreeable appearance floating in the bowl. The sherbet being thus prepared, to make it into genuine British punch, spirit should be added in the proportions of a bottle of the best Jamaica rum to every pint of the finest Cogniac brandy: the entire strength or weakness may be suited to the general inclination of the company for which it is prepared. The above quantity of fruit, with about three quarters of a pound of sugar, will make sufficient sherbet for three quarts of punch.

Pine apple rum, and capillaire syrup instead of part of the sugar, may be used, if convenient, with considerable advantage to the flavour; though it will prove excellent punch without cither of these auxiliaries, or even Seville orange. The same sort of sherbet may, of course, be used for brandy punch, or rum punch singly; but punch is seldom so made in England: most persons indeed mix equal parts of rum and brandy. -Arrack punch, however, is always made with that sprit alone, and usually with a simple sherbet of lime or lemon juice, with sugar, as the flavour of the Seville orange interferes too much with the peculiar flavour of the arrack, which proves so grateful to most tastes, though to many very unpleasant. When with the richest sherbet, sometimes rendered still richer by fruit jellies, and even nutmeg, wine is mingled with the rum and brandy instead of water, the liquor is called punch royal.

The mixture of a small quantity of ale or porter, highly recommended by some in making punch, seems only advisable when it is rum punch, made without any brandy, and must, even then, be very sparingly introduced. This article, whatever may appear its value, is furnished, with regard to its principles, by one of the first practical punch makers in Europe; who could easily, by dwelling on minute circumstances, have supplied matter for a small volume; the essence of which is, however, he freely confesses, here sufficiently concentrated for every useful purpose.

With regard to the salubrity of punch, when drank in moderation, hot in winter, or cold, and even iced in summer, it affords a most grateful beverage; admirably allaying thirst, promoting the secretions, and conveying animal ion to the spirits. if however, amid the hilarity excited by the tempting fragrance, and luscious taste, which the balmy bowl seldom fails to inspire, it be too freely and too habitually drank, its powerful combination of spirit and acid, instead of proving favourable to the constitution, will infallibly tend to bring on the gout, even sooner than most wines or strong cider, unless happily prevented by using a considerable deal of exercise.

Punch, like all the prime blessings of life, is excellent, and even salutary, when prudently enjoyed at proper seasons. We must not charge on them pur own want of discretion, by which alone they are ever converted to evils.

The apparently whimsical English name of punch, like the liquor itself, is of West-India origin, the word in the aboriginal language signifying simply five, being the number of ingredients there used: viz. 1, acid, or lime, or lemon juice; 2, sweetness or sugar; 3, spirit or rum, etc.; 4, water; and 5, spicy flavour, or nutmeg, etc It is singular, too, that punch, the word for five, consists of just five letters.

From the opposite natures of the several ingredients, punch has also been sometimes called the liquor of contradictions.

*** For this very elaborate receipt I am indebted to that ex-cellent work, "The Family Receipt Book," 4to. London: printed for Oddy and Co., Oxford Street, London, which is certainly the best collection I have seen, and deserves a place in every steward's room, as should also "Appert's Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances."