# Housekeeper and butler's guide, or, A system of cookery, and making of wines

THE
HOUSEKEEPER AND BUTLER’S
GUIDE;
or, a
SYSTEM OF COOKERY,
and
MAKING OF WINES.
ADAPTED TO THE USE OF SMALL AND PRIVATE FAMILIES.
GLASGOW:
printed for the booksellers.
27
DOMESTIC COOKERY,
FISH.
observations on dressing fish.
If the fishmonger does not clean it, fish is seldom very nicely done; but those in great towns wash it beyond what is necessary for cleaning, and by perpetual watering diminish the flavour. When quite clean, if to be boiled, some salt and a little vinegar should he put into the water to give firmness; but cod, whiting, and haddock, are far better if a little salted, and kept a day; and if not very hot weather they will be good two days.
Those who know how to purchase fish, may, by taking more at a time than they want for one day, often get it cheap: and such kinds as will pot or pickle, or keep by being sprinkled with salt and hung up, or by being fried, will serve for stewing the next day, may then be bought with advantage.
Fresh-water fish has often a muddy smell and taste, to take off which, soak it in strong salt and water after it is nicely cleaned; or if of a size to bear it, scald it in the same; then dry and dress it.
to boil salmon.
Clean it carefully, boil it gently, and take it out of the water as soon as done. Let the water be warm if the fish be split. If underdone it is very unwholesome.—Shrimp or anchovy-sauce.
to broil salmon.
Cut slices an inch thick, and season with pepper and salt; lay each slice in half a sheet of white paper, well buttered, twist the ends of the paper, and broil the slices over a slow fire six or eight minutes. Serve in the paper with anchovy-sauce.
to dress salt cod.
Soak and dean the piece you mean to dress, then lay it all night in water, with a glass of vinegar. Boil it enough, then break it into flakes on the dish; pour over it parsnips boiled, beaten in a mortar, and then boil up with cream and a large piece of butter rubbed with a bit of flour. It may be served with egg-sauce instead of the parsnip, and the root sent up whole; or the fish may be boiled and sent up without flaking, with the sauces before mentioned.
to pickle tongues for boiling.
Cut off the root, but leave a little of the kernel and fat. Sprinkle some salt, and let it drain from the slime till next day: then for each tongue mix a large spoonful of common salt, the same of coarse sugar, and about half as much of saltpetre; rub it well in, and do so every day. In a week add another heaped spoonful of salt. If rubbed every day, a tongue will be ready in a fortnight; but if only turned in the pickle daily, it will keep four or five weeks without being too salt.
When you dry tongues write the date on a parchment and tie it on. Smoke them, or dry them plain, if you like best.
When it is to be dressed, boil it till extremely tender; allow five hours; and if done sooner, it is ​easily kept hot. The longer kept after drying, the higher it will be; if hard, it may require soaking three or four hours.
to dress a haunch of mutton.
Keep it as long as it can be preserved sweet by the different modes: let it be washed with warm milk and water, or vinegar, if necessary; but when to be dressed, observe to wash it well, lest the out side should have a bad flavour from keeping. Put a paste of coarse flour or strong paper, and fold the haunch in: set it a great distance from the fire, and allow proportionable time for the paste; don’t take off till about thirty-five or forty minutes before serving, and then baste it continually. Bring the haunch nearer to the fire before yon take off the paste, and froth it up as you would venison.
A gravy must be made of a pound and a half of an of old mutton, simmered in a pint of water to half, and no seasoning but salt: brown it with a a little burnt sugar, and send it up in the dish; but there should be a good deal of gravy in the meat; For though long at the fire, the distance and covering will prevent its roasting out.—Serve with currant-jelly-sauce.
to roast a saddle of mutton.
Let it be well kept first. Raise the skin, and then skewer it on again; take it off a quarter of an hour before serving, sprinkle it with some salt, baste well, and dredge it well with flour. The rump should be split, and skewered back on each side. The splint may be large or small according to the company: it is the most elegant if the latter. Being broad it requires a high and strong fire.
to boil shoulder of mutton with oysters.
Hang it some days, then salt it well for two days: bone it; and sprinkle it with pepper and a bit of mace pounded: lay some oysters over it, and roll the meat up tight and tie it. Stew it in a small quantity of water, with an onion and a few peppercorns till quite tender.
Have ready a little good gravy, and some oysters stewed in it: thicken this with flour and butter, and pour over the mutton when the tape is taken off. The stew-pan should he kept close covered,
mutton sausages.
Take a pound of the rawest part of the leg of mutton that has been either roasted or boiled; chop it extremely small, and season it with pepper, salt, mace, and nutmeg; add to it six ounces of beef suet, some sweet herbs, two anchovies, and a pint of oysters, all choped very small: a quarter of a pound of grated bread, some of the anchovy liquor, and the yolks and whites of two eggs well beaten. Put it all, when well mixed, into a little pot: and use it by rolling it into halls or sausage-shape and frying. If approved, a little shalot may he added,
to dress mutton rumps and kidneys.
Stew six rumps in some good mutton-gravy half an hour; then take them up, and let them stand to cool. Clear the gravy from the fat; and put into it four ounces of boiled rice, an onion stuck with cloves, and a blade of mace; boil them till the rice ​is thick. Wash the ramps with yolks of eggs well beaten, and strew over them crumbs of bread, a little pepper and salt, chopped parsley, and thyme, and grated lemon-peel. Fry in butter of a fine brown. While the rumps are stewing, lard the kidneys, and put them to roast in a Dutch oven. When the rumps are fried, the grease must be drained before they are put on the dish, and the pan being cleared likewise from the fat, warm the rice in it. Lay the latter on the dish; the rumps put round on the rice, the narrow ends towards the middle, and the kidneys, between. Garnish with hard eggs cut in half, the white being left on; or with different coloured pickles.
scotch mutton broth.
Soak a neck of mutton in water for an hour; cut off the scrag, and put it into a stew-pot with two quarts of water. As soon as it boils, skim it well, and then simmer it an hour and a half, then take the best end of the mutton, cut it into pieces, (two bones in each,) take some of the fat off, and put as many as you think proper; skim the moment the fresh meat boils up, and every quarter of an hour afterwards. Have ready four or five carrots, the same number of turnips, and three onions, all cut, but not small: and put them in soon enough to get quite tender: add four large spoonful of Scotch Barley, first wetted with cold water. The meat should stew three hours. Salt to taste, and serve all together. Twenty minutes before serving, put in some chopped parsley. It is an excellent winter dish.
eal broth.
Stew a small knuckle in about three quarts of water, two ounces of rice, a little salt, and a blade of mace till the liquor is half wasted away.
old peas soup.
Save the water of boiled pork or beef; and if to salt, put as much fresh water to it; or use fresh water entirely, with roast beef-bones, a ham or gammon-bone, or an anchovy or two. Simmer these with some good whole or split peas; the smaller the quantity of water at first, the better. Simmer till the peas will pulp through a colander; then set the pulp, and more of the liquor that boiled the peas, with two carrots, a turnip, a leek, and a stick of celery cut into bits, to stew till all is quite tender. The last requires less time; an hour will do for it.
When ready, put fried bread cut into dice, dried mint rubbed fine, pepper, and (if wanted) salt into the turreen; and pour the soup in.
green peas soup.
In shelling the peas, divide the old from the young; put the old ones, with an ounce of butter, a pint of water, the outside leaves of a lettuce or two, two onions, pepper and salt, to stew till you can pulp the peas; and when you have done so, put to the liquor that stewed them some more water, the hearts and tender stalks of the lettuces, the young peas, a handful of spinach cut small, and salt and pepper to relish properly, and stew till quite soft. If the soup is too thin, or nor rich enough, either of ​these faults may Lie removed by adding an ounce or two of butter, mixed with a spoonful of rice or wheatflour, and boiled with it half an hour. Before serving, boil some green mint shred fine in the soup.
mutton pie.
Cut steaks from a loin or neck of mutton that has hung; beat them, and remove some of the fat. Season with salt, pepper, and a little onion; put a little water at the bottom of the dish, and a little paste on the edge; then cover with a moderately thick paste. Or raise small pies, and breaking each bone in two to shorten it, season, and cover it over, pinching the edge. When they come out, pour into each a spoonful of gravy made of a bit of mutton.
chicken pie.
Cut up two young fowls; season with white pepper, salt, a little mace, and nutmeg, all in the finest powder; likewise a little Cayenne. Put the chicken, slices of ham, or fresh gammon of bacon, forcemeat-balls, and hard eggs, by turns, in layers. If it is to be baked in a dish, put a little water; but none if in a raised crust. By the time it returns from the oven, have ready a gravy if knuckle of veal, or a bit of the scrag, with some shank-bones of mutton, seasoned with herbs, onion, mace, and white pepper. If it is to be eaten hot you may add truffles, morels, mushrooms, &c. but not if to be eaten cold. If it is made in a dish, put as much gravy as will fill it; but in raised crust, the gravy must be nicely strained, and then put in cold as jelly. To make the jelly clear, you may ​give it a boil with the whites of two eggs, after taking away the meat, and then run it through a fine lawn sieve.
pigeon pie.
Rub the pigeons with pepper and salt, inside and out; in the latter, put a bit of butter, and if approved, some Sparsely chopped with the livers, and a little of the same seasoning. Lay a beef-steak at the bottom of the dish and the birds on it; between every two, a hard egg. Put a cup of water in the dish; and if you have any ham in the house, lay a bit on each pigeon: it is a great improvement to the flavour.
Observe, when ham is cut for gravy or pies, to take the under part rather than the prime.
Season the gizzards, and two joints of the wings, and put them in the centre of the pie; and over them, in a hole made in the crust, three feet nicely cleaned, to show what the pie is.
raised crust, for meat pies, or fowls, &c.
Boil water with a little fine lard, and an equal quantity of fresh dripping, or of butter, but not much of either. While hot, mix this with as much flour as you will want, making the paste as stiff as you can to be smooth, which you will make by well kneading it, and beating it with the rolling-pin. When quite smooth, put in a lump into a cloth, or under a pan, to soak till near cold.
Those who have not a good hand at raising crust may do thus; roll the paste of a proper thickness, and cut out the top and bottom of the pie, then a long piece for the sides. Cement the ​bottom to the sides with egg, bringing the former rather farther out, and pinching both together; put egg between the edges of the paste, to make it adhere at the sides. Fill your pie, and put on the cover, and pinch it and the side crust together. Thee same mode of uniting the paste is to be observed if the sides are pressed into a tin form, in which the paste must be baked, after it shall be filled and covered; but in the latter case, the tin should be buttered, and carefully taken off when done enough; and as the form usually makes the sides of a lighter colour than is proper, the paste should be put into the oven again for a quarter of an hour. With a feather, put egg over at first.
baked apple pudding.
Pare and quarter four large apples; boil them tender, with the rind of a lemon, in so little water that, when done, none may remain; beat them quite fine in a mortar; add the crumb of a small roll, four ounces of butter melted, the yolks of five and whites of three eggs, juice of half a lemon, and sugar to taste; beat altogether, and lay it in a dish With paste to turn out.
boiled bread pudding.
Grate white bread; pour boiling milk over it and cover close. When soaked an hour or two eat it fine, and mix with it two or three eggs well ⟨beaten⟩. Put it into a bason that will just hold it;(illegible text)e a floured cloth over it, and put it into boiling water.—Send it up with melted butter poured over.
It may be eaten with salt or sugar.
Pruncee, or French plumbs, make a fine puddling instead of raisins, either with suet or bread pudding.
apple pie.
Pare and core the fruit, having wiped the outside; which, with the cores, boil with a little water till it tastes well; strain, and put a little sugar, and a bit of bruised cinnamon, and simmer again. In the mean time place the apples in a dish, a paste being put round the edge; when one lawyer is in, sprinkle half the sugar, and shred lemon-peel, and squeeze some juice, or a glass of cider. If the apples have lost their spirit; put in the rest of the apples, sugar, and the liquor that you have boiled. Cover with paste. You may add some butter when cut, if eaten hot; or put quince-marmalade, orange-paste or cloves, to flavour.
hot apple pie.
Make with the fruit, sugar, and a clove, and put a bit of butter in when cut open.
a cheap seed cake.
Mix a quarter of a peck of flour with half a pound of sugar, a quarter of an ounce of allspice, and a little ginger; melt three quarters of a pound of butter, with half a pint of milk; when just warm, put to it a quarter of a pint of yeast, and work up to a good dough. Let it stand before the fire a few minutes before it goes to the oven; add seeds, or currants, and bake an hour and a half.
the BUTLER’S, AND INNKEEPER’S GUIDE
english port.
Put four gallons of good port wine into a 30 gallon cask that has been fumed with a match; add to it 20 gallons of good cyder; then nearly fill the cask with French brandy—the juice of sloes and elder-berries will make it of a proper roughness; put in some cochineal to colour it. You may use turnip-juice, or raisin-cyder instead of cyder; and brandy-cyder instead of French brandy.
english sack.
To every gallon of water, put four sprigs of rue, and a handful of fennel-root boil these for half an hour—then strain it; and to every quart of liquor, put three quarters of a pound of honey; boil it two hours; skim it well; when boiled, pour it off, and turn it into a clean cask. Keep it one year in a cask; then bottle it off, and it will be excellent.
english mountain.
To every gallon of spring water, put five pounds of raisins, chopped exceedingly fine; let them remain three weeks; then squeeze out the liquor, and put it into a cask that has been fumigated with some matches: do not stop it till the fermentation has ceased; then bung it tight, and, when fine, bottle it off.
english champaign.
To two gallons of water, put six pounds of moist ​sugar; boil them together half an hour, and scum it clear; then pour it boiling hot on three quarts of currants, picked from the stalks; and when cold, work it for two days with half a pint of ale-yeast; then strain it through a flannel bag, and put it into a clean cask with half a pint of isinglass finings: when it has done working, stop it close for a month, and then bottle it. In every bottle, put a lump of loaf-sugar. This is good wine with a fine colour.
english claret.
To three gallons of water, put a gallon of cyder and four pounds of bruised Malaga raisins, and let them stand covered in a warm place for a fortnight, stirring it thoroughly every other day; then strain it into a clean cask, and add to it half a pint of barberries, half a pint of raspberries, and half a pint of the juice of black cherries; work it up with a handful of mustard-seed: cover the bunghole with a piece of coarse dough, and set it by the fireside for four days; then remove it; let it stand a week more, and bottle it off. When it is ripe, it is like claret.
frontigniac wine.
To three gallons of water, put three pounds of sun raisins, cut small, and six pounds of sugar, boil them an hour, then take of elder-flowers that are ripe enough to shake off, a quarter of a peck, and add them when the liquor is grown cool; the next day, put to it three spoonful of lemon-juice and three of good yeast; on the third day, put it into a clean cask, and bung it up. Bottle it off, when it has stood two months.
currant wine.
Strip two gallons of currants, not over ripe, into ​an earthen steen that has a cover: then take five quarts of water, and three pounds of sugar, and boil them together; scum it well, and pour it boiling jhot on the currants: after it has stood 48 hours, strain it through a flannel bag into the vessel again; let it stand 14 days to settle, and then bottle it.
another recipe.
Your currants must be quite ripe, bruise them to a mesh with your hands, and to every quart of pulp, put the same quantity of water, mix them together in a tub, and let them stand till next day, then strain them through a hair sieve, and to each gallon, allow two pounds and a half of sugar; when the latter is quite melted, put the liquor in a cask, with a little dissolved isinglass: then to every two gallons add a pint of mountain wine; bung up the cask; when fine, draw it off. Wash the cask with a little brandy, strain the grounds through a bag, and put the whole into the cask again; add to every gallon half a pound more sugar. In a month’s time, bottle it.
another.
The currants must be gathered when full ripe; strip them, bruise them in a mortar, and to every quart of pulp, put a pint of water that has been boiled, and let it stand till it grows cold; put it in a tub to ferment for 24 hours, then run it through a hair-sieve quite gently; to every gallon of liquor, allow two pounds and a half of coarse loaf-sugar; stir it well; then put it in your cask; and to every three gallons, put a pint of the best rectified spirits of wine; let it stand six weeks, and then bottle it.
raisin wine.
To every 10 pounds of raisins, picked from the stalks, and torn in two, put two gallons of water; let them steep 14 days, stir them once a day; pour of the liquor, and press the juice from the raisins into it. Put it in a cask that will just hold the quantity you intend to make, for it must be quite full; let it stand open, till it has done working; then allow, to every four gallons, a quart of French brandy, stop it up quite close. It must stand six months before you bottle it off, in doing which, do not draw it too near the bottom of the cask. You must make it in the course of January, February, or march, as the fruit is then new.
another.
Take 20 pounds of Malaga raisins, cut them slightly, and put them into a cask with four gallons of water and half a pint of brandy; stir it well with a stick once a day for a week; bung it up close; let it stand six months, and then bottle it up.
another.
Boil a gallon of spring water for half an hour; put into a steen two pounds of raisins, a pound of sugar, and the rind of a lemon; pour the water on boiling hot; let it stand covered for four days, strain it off, and bottle it. In 16 days, it will be fit for use, and make a very refreshing drink in hot weather.
another.
Choose the best Malaga raisins, picked clean from the stalk, and to every quart of water, allow ​pound and a half of raisins; boil the water, but do not pour it on the fruit till it is quite cold; let it stand in a large tub 14 days, stirring it well each day. Strain it off into your cask; keep enough in serve to fill it up as the liquor works over, which will do for the first two months; do not bung it till the fermentation has ceased.
another.
To half a hogshead of spring water, allow 150 pounds weight of Malaga raisins, and half a pound hops; let it stand a fortnight, stirring it twice every day; then press the juice from them into a tub, and put to it a piece of toasted bread, spread with yeast; let it work a day and a night, then whisk it, and let it work a fortnight longer, filling it in as it works over; when it has ceased, bung it tight; in two months, bottle it off.
orange wine.
Take ten pounds of Malaga raisins, picked clean from the stalks, and chop them very small: get eight large Seville oranges, pare the rinds of four as thin as possible, put the peel to your raisins; boil three gallons of soft water till it is reduced to two; let it cool a little, and then pour it on the fruit; let it stand five days, and stir it twice a day. Strain through a hair-sieve, and with a strong wooden spoon press the raisins as dry as you can; put it in a cask, and add the rinds of the other four oranges, pared thin like the others; make a syrup of the juice from the eight oranges with half a pound of lump-sugar; add this in your cask; stir it well together; close it up tight from the air; let it stand two months (illegible text) fine, and then bottle it off for use. It will keep a long time, and improve by it.
gooseberry wine.
To 16 pounds of gooseberries, allow six pound of loafsugar, and a gallon of spring-water, bruise the fruit, and let them lay in water 24 hours, often stirring it; then press out the liquor into a clean cask, and let it ferment: when it has ceased, bung it up and let it stand a month; then rack it into another cask for six weeks longer; and bottle it up with a lump of sugar in each bottle.
damson wine.
To two gallons of water, put eight pounds of Malaga raisins, and a quarter of a peck of bruiser damsons; put them in a tub; cover them over: and stir it twice every day for a week; draw it of and colour it; put it in a cask; bung it up for a fortnight; and it will then be fit to bottle.
cherry wine.
Pull them from the stalks, and bruise them, but do not break the stones; press the juice from them through a hair-sieve, and to every quart of liquor, allow half a pound of sugar: fill a clean cask with it, and let it ferment as long as it makes a noise in the cask; bung it up for six weeks; bottle it off with a lump of sugar in each bottle. Should they then ferment with any violence, let them stand without corks awhile; then cork them tight, and in three months it will be fit to drink.
ginger wine.
Take 14 gallons of water, six pounds of sugar, four ounces of bruised ginger, and the whites of two eggs, well beaten; mix them; set them on a fire; boil it 15 minutes; skim it well and when cold. ​pour it into an earthen vessel; squeeze in the juice of four lemons; and the rinds pared exceedingly thin; put to it a tea-cupful of ale-yeast; let it work for a day and a night; then tun it into a cask; hung it up; and in a fortnight, you may bottle it off.
lemon wine.
Take eight large lemons, pare them thin, and squeeze out the juice; put to it two pints of brandy, and fling in the rinds of the lemons; let it remain in a earthen vessel close covered, for three days; in the mean time, squeeze out the juice of half a dozen more lemons into two quarts of spring water, and three pounds of loafsugar; boil them together; and, when it is cold, put to it the brandy and lemons you have prepared, with a bottle of wine; mix them together, and strain it through a linen bag into a cask; stop it close; and, in a quarter of a year, bottle it off; mind to cork and wire your bottles tight down; keep it in sand eight weeks, and it will be fit for use.
usquebaugh.
To make two gallons, take of mace and cloves six penny-weights each, and of cinnamon three quarters of an ounce, and eight penny-weights of ginger, and the same of coriander-seed, and ten penny-weights of either apricot or peach kernels, the same of dates; six ounces of liquorice root, two pounds of lumpsugar, and three quarters of a pound of Malaga Raisins. Prepare your ingredients as follows; bruise the seeds and kernals in a mortar, and put them in the spirits you are going to use, and steep them for ten days; stone the dates and raisins, and boil them with the liquorice in three pints of water, ​till it is reduced one half, then strain it through a cloth; disolve the sugar in a little warm water, and skim it clear, then strain the spirit, and add the dissolved sugar and the liquor that came from the raisins, &c. all together; let it stand till it fines itself, for you must use no finings to it. If you wish it yellow, tie some saffron in a cloth, dip it in the liquor, and squeeze it in to what height of colour you please.—If you wish it green, boil tansey in water, put it in a cloth, and squeeze it into the usquebaugh.—If you choose it brown, colour it with burnt sugar.
peppermint.
For 10 gallons, take six and a half of spirits, and eight penny-weights of the oil of peppermint, with six pounds of loaf-sugar, and three quarters of a pint of the spirits of wine; fill it up with water, and fine it as you do Geneva; also in every compound, kill the oil you use, and work it in a similar manner.
cinnamon cordial.
Take two gallons of spirits, and a penny-weight and a half of cassia-oil, half a penny-weight of the oil of orange, half an ounce of cinnamon pounded, two pounds of loaf-sugar, and two drops of the oil of carraway: colour it with burnt sugar, and fine it with isinglass; when it is quite clear, bottle it off, or put it in a small cask.
clove cordial.
Take a gallon of spirits, and four ounces of clovepepper, and a penny-weight of oil of cloves, three quarters of a pound of lump sugar, and half a pint of elder-juice; make six quarts of this by filling it ​up with water; colour it with archill in a hag, till it is a deep red; let it fine of itself. If you prefer it white, omit the archill and elder-juice, and fine it the same as English gin.
orange-brandy.
To four quarts of brandy, put nine Seville oranges, a pound and a quarter of loaf-sugar, and a half penny-weight of the essense of lemon; pare the oranges thin, and steep the peel in the brandy, close stopped in a stone bottle for twelve days; then boil the sugar in three pints of water for an hour; scum it, and when cold mix it with the brandy; squeeze the oranges therein; strain it through a filtering-bag, and what is deficient of four quarts, make up with water
cherry-brandy.
The best and most usual way of making it, is to pick the cherries clean from the stalks into a vessel till it is half full, then fill it up with rectified molasses brandy, which is commonly used for this composition; and when it has infused eighteen days, draw off the liquor by degrees as you want it, till it is all drawn off; then fill the vessel a second time with brandy nearly full, let it stand a full month before you begin to draw it off, and then draw it off as you want it. You may use the same fruit a third time, by just covering them with brandy that is over proof; let it stand seven weeks, and when you draw it off for use, you may lower it by putting as much water as the brandy was above proof. Press the cherries as long as any liquor is in them, before you fling them away.
When you make the cherry-brandy from the first infusion, (which is the best, and contains most ​brandy) mix more brandy with it till you have brought it to such a degree of colour, that you can just discern the blaze of a lighted candle, held on the other side of the wine-glass. If it does not taste enough of the fruit, add a little more of the first infusion; and to every ten gallons of cherry–brandy, allow a pound and a half of sugar, and a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon and cloves, pounded together; let it stand some time, and it will much improve it.
When you draw off the second infusion, it will be rather inferior to the first, and will bear less brandy in mixing for sale, but requires double the weight of spice, and more sugar.
The third infusion requires no brandy to be put to it, hut must he lowered as before directed; sweeten it, and use spice the same as for the second in fusion. The liquor that is pressed from the cherries, after they have been thrice infused, will be thicker than the rest, thin it with some brandy, and put to it a proper quantity of sugar and spice; when it has stood a few days to settle, it will he fit for use or sale. Some dealers add elder-juice to the cherry-brandy.
lemon-syrup.
Take two quarts of lemon-juice, and set it over a gentle fire, in a brass pan, with three quarter of a pound of good moist sugar; stir it frequently till it becomes a syrup; take it off, and when cold, bottle it for use.
elder-syrup.
Put two quarts of elder-juice in a brass pan, over a clear gentle fire, with the white of an egg, beat ​to froth; when it begins to boil, scum it as long as any froth appears on the surface; then put to every pint a pound of moist sugar, and boil it slowly till it becomes a proper syrup: let it stand till it is cold, then put it in glass bottles, cover it only with a stiff writing-paper, pricked full of holes with a needle; keep it for use, and it makes, among other things, an excellent colouring.
five recipes for shrub.
first
Put two pints of brandy in a large bottle, put in it the rind of a lemon, and the juice of two large ones, grate in about the fourth part of a large nutmeg; stop it close for three days, then add a pint and a half of white wine, and three quarters of a pound of white sugar, mix it well, and run it twice through a filtering-bag, and then bottle it.
second.
Take two pounds of loaf-sugar, dissolve it in five pints of orange-juice, and a quart of brandy, mix it well, and when the sugar is quite melted, put it in a little cask till it is fine, then bottle it.
third.
Take three quarts and a half of ruin, and a pint and a half of orange-juice, and three half pints of currant-wine, and a pound of loaf-sugar, boiled in a quart of spring-water; take the scum clear off, and when cold, mix it together. Some persons prefer orange and lemon-juice mixed, or a small quantity of the essence of lemons improve the flavour of shrub.
fourth.
Take a gallon of rum, put to it a small quantity of the essence of lime, and a pound and a half of moist-sugar, a pint of lime-juice, and four quarts of water; boil the sugar and water together, scum it well, and when cold, put in a little isinglass finings, and white of an egg, with the essence and lime-juice, mix it well with the rum; and put it to settle; this is a proper shrub for publicans.
fifth.
Shrub, in the West Indies, is often made as follows: take two quarts of rum, three pounds of sugar, dissolved in a pint of lime-juice, and mix it well with the rum; then put it in a small cask, or a large bottle to settle, and it will become mellow.
This is excellent in punch.
spruce beer.
Take 12 gallons of water, boil it and mix it with 12 pounds of treacle; put it in a cask, and when near cold, put in a pot of essence of spruce, (as it is sold by the Druggest) mixed with some of the liquor; then add half a pint of good yeast, stir it well up, keep out the bung three or four days till it has done working; then fine it with half an ounce of isinglass, and stir it thoroughly; bung it, aud in ten days bottle it off into stone quart bottles, and wire the corks.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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