The Complete Confectioner (1800)/Brandy

by Hannah Glasse and Maria Wilson

BRANDY, CYDER, &c.

To make Cherry Brandy.

Take of black and morella cherries, of each a like quantity, and fill your jar or bottle full; to every twelve pounds of cherries put in half a pound of either plumb or apricot kernels; fill it up with French brandy, and the longer it stands the better it will be. Currant brandy may be made the same way.

Another Way.

Take and pick eight pounds of black maroon cherries, and eight pounds of small black cherries, put them in a mortar and bruise them, or leave them whole if you chuse; put them into a cask, and pour six gallon of good brandy over them; then put in two pounds of loaf sugar broke to pieces, and a quart of sack; stir all well up together, and let it stand two months; then draw it off into pint bottles, cork it tight, and keep it for use. You may make it with morella cherries the same way.

To make Raspberry Brandy.

Take two gallons of raspberries, pick them from the stalks, bruise them with your hands, and put them into a cask; pour eight gallons of good brandy over them, put in two pounds of loaf sugar beat fine, and a quart of sack; stir all well together, and let it stand a month; then draw it off clear into another cask, and when it is fine bottle it, cork the bottles well, and keep it for use.

To make Sir John Cope's Shrub.

Take two gallons of brandy, twenty-four Genoa Lemons, and peel the yellow rinds very thin; throw away all the whites of the rinds, slice the lemons, and throw away the stones; then let yellow rind, and the lemons so sliced, infuse in the brandy five or six days; drain them through a thick flannel, and put to the brandy a gallon of white wine or rhenish, with six pounds of white sugar; bottle it up, and let it be close sealed.

To make Currant Shrub.

Take white currants full ripe, mash them with your hands, then strain them through a hair sieve, and to one gallon of rum or brandy put five pints of the currant juice, and a pound of loaf sugar; cover it up close, and let it stand two or three days, stirring it twice a day; then run it through a jelly bag: it is best to put half the spirits to the juice, and add the other half when you bottle it off.

To make Cyder.

Let your apples be thoroughly ripe; press out the juice, and throw it into a tub or vat with a tap and canal in it; about thirty or forty hours after you have put it into the vat, you will observe a head to rise upon it; take care not to disturb the head, or suffer it to break, which it will do, if you neglect to draw off the cyder at a proper time. When therefore your head is pretty thick, draw a glass of it now and then, and see whether it is fine; when you see it fine, draw it off into a clean vessel. By this means you will get rid of a good deal of fæces, which, if the head breaks, will mix again with the cyder, and not easily be discharged. When the cyder is in the hogshead, it will begin, after a day or two, to sing or ferment again, which is discovered by putting your ear to the bung of your hogshead. Let it ferment four or five days, in order to raise a proper spirit, but no longer; too great a fermentation being apt to destroy that lusciousness which is necessary to deserve to preserve it, and give it a fine taste of the apple. After it has worked four or five days, rack it into another vessel matched with brimstone; the match of brimstone answers two ends, it stops the fermentation, and by keeping the body quiet, occasions the heavy particles to subside. By this means you will get your cyder perfectly fine, and keep up the strength and lusciousness of it, which by too much fermentation will necessarily go off. After you have got it thoroughly fine, you may rack it into another vessel matched with brimstone, and stop it up till the time of bottling, which is about May, or the latter end of August; or if it be too luscious, not till the March following. However, do not rack it too often, because it weakens the cyder, and occasions a good deal of the spirit to fly off.

In the above method of making cyder, it is to be observed, that the chief intention is to stop the fermentation, to unlock or raise no more of the spirit than is necessary, and to preserve as much of the lusciousness as possible. The method is the same in the management of wines, and for the like reason. When you brew malt liquor, you can add spirit to it by an additional quantity of malt: but in wines and cyder you have but just such a quantity of spirit, which therefore must be managed with prudence and frugality. The common fermentation, which cyder undergoes in bottles, will soon raise spirit enough, and make it like old wine, a noble racy liquor; for in proportion as the spirit is raised by fermentation, the lusciousness goes off. But if you ferment it too much at first, the spirit will be exhausted, the lusciousness broke and carried off, and you will have nothing left, but a rough, vapid disagreeable liquor, such as you meet with among country farmers, who often ferment their cyder so long, that it is fit for little else but to make vinegar.

To make Sir John Cape's Cyder, good and fit for drinking in two or three Days.

Take any quantity of apples, pound them, and pour three gallons of water on each bushel; put them into a tub, or any other wooden vessel, with a spiggot near the bottom; let them infuse twenty-four hours; then, without pressing or shaking the vessel, draw off the liquor into bottles, which after two or three days will be clear, and fit to drink, but it will be too brisk if kept much longer; it may be proper to fasten a small basket, such as brewers use, to the end of the fosset, to keep the apples from stopping it.

To make Mr. Bentham's Cyder.

Take your apples and beat them in a wooden trough till they are well mashed; then put them into a clean hair bag, squeeze and press out the juice, and let it run into a clean vessel; then put it into the barrel you intend to keep it in; it is best to be thick; you must clay up your vessel, as you do beer, the next morning.

To make Perry.

Take pears that have a vinous juice, such as gooseberry pears, horse pears, both red and white, the john and joke pears, and others of the like kind; take the reddest of the sort, let them be ripe, but not too ripe, and grind them as you do apples for cyder, and work it off in the same manner: if your pears are of a sweet taste, mix a few crabs with them.

To make Usquebaugh.

Take ten gallons of good malt spirits; aniseeds one pound; cloves two ounces; nutmegs, ginger, and caraway seeds, of each four ounces; coriander seeds four ounces; distil them in a still with a worm, put it into a vessel, and add to it Spanish liquorice bruised, and raisins of the sun stoned, of each two pounds; cinnamon four ounces; dates, stoned and the white skin taken off, four ounces: if you intend it to be yellow, put in two ounces of saffron, and five pounds of white or brown sugar-candy; keep it close nine or ten days, stir it once a day; and if you would have it green, leave out the saffron, and add either angelica or green corn sufficient to give it a fine colour; a week after, put in three grains of ambergris and musk; after standing ten days, put a flannel in a large sieve, set the sieve under a funnel, and strain it into the cask; let it stand till it is fine, bottle it off, and the longer you keep it the better.

To make Mum.

Boil a hogshead of water until it is reduced to two thirds; put to it seven bushels of wheat flour, one bushel of oatmeal, and a bushel of beans; then mix with it a handful of elder leaves, with three ounces of barberries; put to it a little yeast, and when it has worked itself from all impurities, let it be drawn off and stopped up close in another cask, with half a dozen of eggs mixed with it; it must be kept in the cask two years before you draw it off for drinking.

To make milk Punch.

Take two quarts of water, one quart of milk, half a pint of lemon juice, and a quart of brandy; sugar it to your taste, put the milk and water together a little warm, then add the sugar and lemon juice and stir it through a flour bag till it is fine; you may bottle it, and it will keep a fortnight or longer.

To make Milk Punch for present drinking.

To two quarts of water put two quarts of French brandy, a dozen and an half of lemons, three quarters of a pound of double refined sugar, and three pints of new milk; strain it frequently through a jelly bag till it is clear and fine; you must make it two or three days before you use it, and may bottle it off, but it will preserve its goodness for some time.