Description
RECIPE FOR MILK PUNCH (Twenty bottles)
As prepared in the Secunderabad Club. (Especially recommended).
Take four dozen fresh limes, two ounces of cinnamon and two ounces of nutmeg (powder), six pounds of sugar, six pints of milk, two bottles of brandy and twelve of rum, six pints boiled water. Take off the peel from the limes and keep separate the juice. Wet the peel in two bottles of rum in av bowl for twenty-four hours.
After twenty-four hours take a big bowl and put the lemon peel and rum into it, also two bottles of brandy, ten bottles of rum and the cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar. Shake or stir until the sugar is dissolved. Then add the six pints of boiled milk. This will curdle the fluid in the bowl. Add six pints of boiled water to the mixture. Keep in the same bowl for twenty-four hours, covered with a cloth. Then strain it in a flannel bag and pour into bottles. The fluid should be quite clear.
To the above recipe, the contributor, well aware of the excellent quality of the brew, appends this appeal:
“ Ij’possible keep the bottles at least a fortnight before drinking.”
RASPBERRY VINEGAR (Non-alcoholic)
Put two quarts of fresh raspberries into a stone jar and pour over them one quart of good wine or cider vinegar. Cover and stand in a cool, dry place for two days, then strain off the liquid without crushing the fruit, pour it over a quart of fresh fruit and stand as before. Do this once again and the last time strain through a calico or flannel bag. Now add one pound of sugar to every pint of the liquid. Boil slowly for five minutes, skim, let stand fifteen minutes, bottle and seal.
Strawberry, cherry and blackberry vinegar are made in the same manner, except that the cherries should be pricked or stoned.
When drinking, fill a glass three-quarters full of shaved ice, or put in a good piece of ice, add a wineglassful of the vinegar and fill up with syphon soda or water.
BRANDY PEACHES
Take large yellow or white freestone peaches, not too ripe. Scald them with boiling water, cover and let stand until the water is cold. Repeat this scalding then take out the peaches, lay them on a soft cloth, cover them over with another cloth and let them remain until perfectly dry. Now put them in stone jars or large glass bottles, and cover with brandy. Tie paper over the tops and let them remain this way one week. Then make a syrup, allowing one pound of granulated sugar and half-a-pint of water to each pound of peaches. Boil and skim the syrup, then put in the peaches and simmer until tender. Then take the peaches out and put them in glass bottles. Stand the syrup aside to cool. When cool, mix equal quantities of this syrup and the brandy in which you had the peaches. Pour this over the peaches and seal. Any brandy that is left, or any brandy and syrup/should be bottled and kept for use in cocktails or cup. It is also excellent for pudding sauces.
MAY BLOSSOM BRANDY
Fill bottles three quarters full of freshly picked mayblossom—not stems or leaves. Fill up with brandy, cork and seal. Store for a month or six weeks, then strain off the brandy, re-bottle and seal. This is an excellent substitute for peach brandy and of great use in cocktails or cup.
CILIEGE SOTTO SPIERITO (Cerises a Teau-de-vie)
The cherries should be ripe, firm and well-flavoured. Morellos are particularly good, but any juicy, well-flavoured cherry will do. Cut the stems to within an inch of the fruit. Pack them without squeezing, stem upwards into glass bottles, and put amongst the cherries to each quart bottle, four whole cloves, three bitter almonds blanched, a bay leaf, and a strip of lemon peel cut so thin that no white appears. Sift a cupful of castor sugar into each bottle, fill up with pure spirits of wine, cork and seal. The bottles should be kept for two years before using. The longer they are kept the better, up to, say, seven or eight years.
SLOE GIN
Take fine ripe sloes after the first frost. Prick each in four or five places and fill the bottles about three quarters full. Put in a strip of thinly pared lemon peel, three or four cloves and two blanched bitter almonds to each bottle. Shake in a cupful of crushed candy sugar and fill up with Plymouth gin. Two bottles of gin should fill three of the sloe bottles. Cork and seal. Shake the bottles by turning upside down daily for six months. At the end of a year strain off the liquor, bottle and seal. Sloe gin is improved by keeping for a year or two before drinking.
NOCINO (A Walnut Cordial)
Take young walnuts tender enough to be pierced through with a pin. About the end of June is usually the right time. Fill quart bottles with them (the two quart size is better), and add to each quart bottle two bitter almonds blanched, a strip of thin lemon peel, three whole cloves, half an ounce of ratafia, an even teaspoonful of mace, one liqueur glass of yellow Chartreuse, and a teacupful of crushed candy sugar. Fill up with pure spirit. Shake every other day for six months. Then strain off the liquor, bottle and seal. This cordial can be drunk at the end of two years, but it is best to keep it five years before using.
PRUNE SYRUP
Put one pound of prunes (which have been soaked in cold water for twenty-four hours) into a saucepan with two heaped teaspoonfuls of brown sugar, a piece of vanilla, and enough cold water to cover them. Boil until half the liquid has disappeared, then add a tumblerful of claret and simmer until the prunes are cooked. You may add, about ten minutes before removing them, a port glass of brandy to the prunes.
Strain the contents of the saucepan and then pass the juice through a muslin. When it is cool, put it in a bottle and cork it tightly. This syrup will keep for two to three weeks. The prunes, of course, are delicious to eat.
WORMWOOD BITTERS
Put three to four sprigs of wormwood into a pitcher, and pour over them a bottle of gin. Cover the pitcher and let it stand for three weeks, after which time the bitters are ready to be bottled, the wormwood having been removed. This recipe is from Bermuda, whose inhabitants, we are told, used these bitters almost exclusively.
ESSENCE OF ORANGE AND OF LEMON
The rind of oranges peeled off very thin, to be put in glass jar with alcohol at 90 or 95 degrees, enough to cover the skins, but no more. Leave it at least a month, shaking occasionally, then remove the pieces of rind. It makes a pure essence of orange, extremely scented and strong. A teaspoonful would be enough to flavour a sweet, and a few drops in a glass of water with a lump of sugar makes a very refreshing summer drink, at a time when oranges are at their worst.
Lemon rind to be treated in the same way.
SYRUP OF LEMON
Squeeze the juice of six lemons and pass it through a fine muslin, and add to it as much sugar as it will dissolve naturally in twelve hours. Put the syrup in bottles tightly corked, when it will keep for several months.
