Blackberry Cordial

To one quart of blackberry juice, add one pound of white sugar, half an ounce of grated nutmeg, and half an ounce of pulverized cinnamon. Tie the spice in a fine muslin bag, boil the whole and skim it. When no more scum rises, set it away to get cold, and add one pint of best brandy. Cloves and allspice may be added in the proportion of a quarter of an ounce of each.

Raisin Wine

Boil the water, which is to be used for the wine, and let it cool. Then put into a cask, eight pounds of raisins, for each gallon of water. Put the fruit and water into the cask alternately, until the cask is quite full. Lay the bung in lightly; stir the wine every day or two. Keep the cask full by the addition of cold water which has been boiled. As soon as fermentation ceases, put the bung in tightly, and leave the wine untouched for a year. Then draw it off in a clean cask, and fine it with a piece of isinglass tied in a muslin bag, and suspended in the liquor. The refuse raisins make good vinegar, if fresh water be poured over them, and the cask set in the sun.

Ginger Wine

To four gallons of water, put eight pounds of white sugar, and half a pound of bruised ginger. Boil the whole together, and pour the liquor in a vessel to cool. To each gallon, add the juice and rind of four lemons. Toast a piece of bread, cover it with fresh yeast, and put it in the liquor. As soon as it begins to ferment, put it into a cask. When the fermentation subsides, which will be in two or three weeks, add two pounds of raisins which have been stoned. In two months it may be bottled.

Rhubarb Wine

Cut five pounds of rhubarb into small pieces; add a gallon of cold water, and put it into a tub for eight or nine days, stirring it well two or three times a day. Strain the liquor, and to every gallon add four pounds of sugar, the juice and half the rind of a lemon; put it in a cask, with half an ounce of isinglass dissolved in a little of the liquor. Add a gill of brandy. Bung the cask closely. Bottle it in ten or twelve months.

A Cheap Summer Drink

Pour two bottles of porter into three quarts of water and one pint of the best molasses. Mix this well together, and in three or four days it will be fit for use.

Gooseberry Champagne

Select large full grown berries, before they begin to turn red. Allow a gallon of water to every three pounds of fruit. Put the berries in a clean tub, pour on a little water, pound and mash the fruit; then add the remainder of the water, and stir the whole well. Cover the tub with a clean cloth, and let it stand four days. Stir it frequently and thoroughly; then strain the liquid through a jelly bag, or coarse linen cloth, and to each gallon, add four pounds of white sugar, and to every five gallons, one quart of the best French brandy. Mix the whole, and put it into a clean cask that will just hold it, as the cask should be full.

Place the cask in a cool dry place, and lay the bung in loosely. Secure the cask firmly, so that it cannot be shaken or moved, as the least disturbance will injure the wine. Let it work for two weeks, or more, until the fermentation is subsided. Then bottle it, and be careful to drive the corks in tightly. Lay the bottles on their sides, and in six months, the wine will be fit for use.

How To Make Perry

Let the pears be sweet and perfectly ripe, but take care that the cores have not become rotten; take them to the press or mill, and squeeze out the juice, from whence the liquor is removed to casks, which must stand in the open air, in a very cool place, with the bung-holes open. The fermentation is accomplished by mixing a pint of new yeast with a little honey and flour warmed, and the whites of four eggs. Put this in a bag of thin muslin, drop it in the cask, and suspend it from the bung-hole by a string, taking care that it does not touch the bottom of the vessel. If it works well, the liquor will have cleared itself in five or six days, and may be drawn off from the lees into smaller casks, or bottled. In winter, Perry requires to be kept warm, and free from frosts or draughts of air. In summer, the vesssels or bottles containing it must be moved to a cool place, otherwise they will burst.

Punch

Four pounds of sugar, one pint of lemon juice, one pint of Jamaica spirits, half a pint of peach brandy, half a pint of French brandy, five quarts of water. The quantity of liquor may be regulated according to the taste.