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Apricot Drink
Peel a dozen apricots, and, after taking out the stones, pour on them a quart of boiling water; allow them to stand for an hour, then strain off the clear liquid, and sweeten with a quarter of a pound of sugar. Probable cost, 2s. 2d. Sufficient to make one quart.
A steeped fruit infusion rather than a juice — closer to a barley water or a tisane than to anything from a carton. The whole method rests on a long soak in water that is off the boil.
- Quantities in modern termsThe quart here is the British imperial quart, about 1.14 litres (a US quart would be about 950 ml); a quarter pound of sugar is about 115 g, a generous half cup. Twelve apricots is roughly 1 to 1.25 lb / 450-570 g of fruit.
- Use ripe fruitThere is no cooking here beyond the initial scald, so all the flavour comes from how ripe the apricots are. Hard supermarket fruit will give you faintly sweet water; use fruit that yields to the thumb and smells of apricot.
- PeelingApricot skins do not slip like tomato skins unless the fruit is very ripe. A 20-second dip in boiling water and a plunge into cold makes the job quick, and the skins can go into the steeping water for colour before straining out.
- Discard the stonesThe recipe is right to remove them. Apricot kernels contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide, and older recipes that crack the stones for an almond note are not worth copying — keep them out of the infusion.
- The hour's standingDo not shorten it, and do not simmer instead. Boiling apricots gives you a cooked, jammy flavour; the point of the hour-long steep is a clean, fresh taste. Cover the bowl while it stands.
- Sweeten while warmAdd the sugar to the strained liquid while it is still warm so it dissolves without stirring up sediment. Then chill. Taste before you commit to the full 115 g — modern apricots vary a good deal.
- Straining"The clear liquid" means poured off gently, not pressed. Squeezing the pulp through a cloth clouds the drink; if you want it very clear, let it settle and decant, or pass it through a jelly bag without forcing.
- Yield and keepingOne quart, enough for four tall glasses over ice. It has no preservative and no acid beyond the fruit's own, so drink it within two days from the refrigerator; a squeeze of lemon sharpens both the flavour and the keeping.
- Probable cost2s. 2d. was a substantial sum for a household of the period, which suggests apricots were not an everyday purchase.
Cassell's includes it among the invalid and summer drinks that any well-run Victorian household was expected to produce: lemonade, barley water, toast water, raspberry vinegar, and fruit infusions like this one, though the book itself is arranged alphabetically, as a dictionary, rather than by category. Such drinks did double duty, as refreshment in hot weather and as something to offer the sick. Apricots reached British kitchens either from walled gardens and glasshouses — though it fruits reliably only under shelter — or, by the late nineteenth century, by rail and steamer from France and Spain, which is why the stated cost is high enough to be worth printing. The technique itself is old and general: pour boiling water over fruit, let it stand, strain, sweeten.