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Aromatic Cordial
Put two ounces of ground ginger, half an ounce of pepper, an ounce of cardamom seeds, half an ounce of bruised cinnamon, half an ounce of mace, and half an ounce of orange-peel, in a quart of good whiskey. Let it stand for a fortnight, tightly corked; then strain and bottle it. It is good to take two or three teaspoonfuls in wine or water when suffering from indigestion or debility.
A steeped spirit rather than a distilled one: the whiskey does all the extracting, so the only real variables are grind, time and how thoroughly you strain. Nothing here needs heat.
- The hinge: whole spices, not groundGround ginger, and mace if you buy it powdered, will pass through any strainer and leave the bottle cloudy and gritty. Cracking or bruising whole spices instead costs a little extraction over the fortnight but pours clear.
- A fortnight is the upper limitTwo weeks at room temperature is ample for this much spice in a quart. Taste at a week; long steeping can push the cardamom, mace and cinnamon towards harshness, and the recipe gives no reason to go past the stated time.
- "Pepper" means black peppercornsHalf an ounce is roughly two to two and a half tablespoons of whole corns, and it is the assertive note in the mix. If you want the sweeter spices forward, halve it.
- Cardamom seedsThe recipe means the seeds, not whole green pods. An ounce of seeds is a great deal; if you are working from pods, allow around an ounce and a half of pods to yield an ounce of seed, and bruise them just before use since cardamom loses aroma fast once opened.
- Orange-peelThis most likely means dried peel, and bitter orange peel was commonly used, being more aromatic and less sugary than modern sweet-orange zest. Dried bitter orange peel is sold for brewing and baking; failing that, use pared zest from two large oranges with no white pith.
- MaceThe outer covering of the nutmeg, sold as dried blades. Half an ounce is a generous handful of blades. Nutmeg is a near substitute but coarser and more resinous, so use rather less.
- Straining and bottlingStrain through a fine sieve, then again through a coffee filter or muslin. Bottled at whiskey strength and kept dark, it holds its flavour for a year or more, though the spice edge softens after a few months.
- YieldRather under a quart once the spices have absorbed their share. At two or three teaspoons a dose that is a very long-lasting bottle.
- On the medicinal claimTreat this as a bitters or a digestif, not as a remedy. It is a spirit at full strength and should be measured as one.
Aromatic cordials of this kind sit on the boundary between the kitchen and the medicine chest, which is exactly where much household cookery stood when Cassell's was compiled. The formula is essentially a domestic version of the compound spirits and tinctures found in contemporary pharmacopoeias , cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and orange peel being the standard carminative spices, credited with settling the stomach and "warming" the system. Phrases like "indigestion or debility" covered a broad range of complaints that a household was expected to manage itself. The same spice list, sweetened and diluted, underlies a whole family of spiced liqueurs and bitters still made commercially; the difference is that the Victorian cook took hers by the teaspoon and called it physic.