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Beverages, Refreshing Summer
Peel, core, and quarter some apples, and boil them in water until they can be mashed through a colander; one pound of apples to a gallon of water will be an economical and pleasant drink, and when boiled up again, with the addition of half a pound of brown sugar, and well skimmed, may be bottled for use. The bottles should not be corked tight. A piece of bread very much toasted, and added to the above, is recommended for invalids. For a spring drink, having very cooling properties, rhubarb should be boiled as above, adding a little more sugar; or, one gallon of cold water added to three lemons, sliced and bruised, with half a pound of sugar. For a summer beverage, a mixture of red currants and raspberries bruised, with half a pound of sugar and well stirred into a gallon of water, will be found excellent to allay thirst. To render them more cooling, a little cream of tartar or citric acid may be added.
Four related drinks in one paragraph: an apple water, a rhubarb water, a lemon water, and a bruised-fruit summer cup. All are extremely dilute by modern standards, and all are built on the same ratio of a little fruit to a lot of water.
- Which gallonCassell's is a British book, so the gallon is imperial: 160 fl oz, about 4.5 litres. A US gallon is 3.8 litres, so following the amounts literally in the US gives a noticeably sweeter, stronger drink. Half a pound of sugar is 225 g.
- The ratio is thin on purposeOne pound of apples to a gallon of water yields something closer to a flavoured water than cider or juice. If you want it to taste of apple, work at 1 lb fruit to 1-2 quarts and treat the original figure as the economy version it is described as being.
- Rhubarb stalks onlyBoil the stalks and discard the leaves entirely. Rhubarb leaves carry high levels of oxalic acid and are not food; the stalks are fine. The book gives no warning, taking the distinction for granted.
- Toast waterThe bread is to be 'very much toasted'; the book simply says it is added to the liquid above. This is toast water, a standard sickroom drink; it contributes a faintly bitter, roasted note and, in period thinking, was held to make the drink more settling to the stomach.
- Why the bottles are not corked tightSweetened fruit liquid at room temperature ferments, and a tightly corked bottle can build enough pressure to burst. The loose cork is a pressure release, not carelessness. Refrigerate these drinks and use them within two or three days rather than keeping bottles on a shelf as the original assumes.
- SkimmingSkim off the froth that rises when the sugared liquid returns to the boil, as the recipe directs; it is mostly fruit solids and pectin-rich scum, and removing it gives a cleaner-looking drink.
- Cream of tartar and citric acidBoth are still sold, cream of tartar in the baking aisle and citric acid as a preserving or brewing ingredient. Start with about half a teaspoon per litre and taste; they sharpen the drink and lower the pH, which also helps it keep a little longer.
- The currant and raspberry version is uncookedThat one is bruised fruit stirred cold into water, so it is a steeped infusion rather than a boiled one. Strain it through muslin after an hour or two, or it turns muddy and the seeds settle out in the glass.
- YieldEach version makes roughly a gallon, so eight to twelve tall glasses. Serve well chilled, over ice if you like.
These are "invalid cookery" drinks rather than anything festive. Nineteenth-century domestic manuals devoted whole sections to thin, palatable liquids for the sick and for labourers in hot weather: toast water, barley water, apple water, lemonade made by the gallon. The economics matter as much as the flavour, and Cassell's says so outright, calling one pound of apples to a gallon of water "economical and pleasant". Cooling was also understood in humoral terms inherited from much older medicine, so rhubarb and acid fruits were valued for "cooling properties" as well as taste, and the cream of tartar suggested at the end had a long history as a mild refrigerant and laxative salt in home medicine. The instruction not to cork the bottles tight is the practical residue of a world without refrigeration, where every sweetened liquid was quietly on its way to becoming something alcoholic.