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Clove Cordial
Put two drachms of cassia buds, two drachms of bruised cloves, a tea-spoonful of peppercorns, and a blade of mace into a bottle, and pour over them a little hot water. Let them remain near the fire, closely corked, for forty-eight hours, then strain the liquid into three pints of spirit, and add two table-spoonfuls of sugar. Two or three drops of prepared cochineal may be added to give the cordial a brighter colour. Probable cost, 3d. or 4d., exclusive of the spirit.
A spiced infusion rather than anything cooked, and the only real work is measuring apothecary weights and finding cassia buds. The result is a dry, sharply aromatic spirit, not the sugary cordial the word suggests today.
- DrachmsAn apothecaries' drachm is one-eighth of a troy ounce (60 grains), about 3.9 g. Two drachms of cassia buds and two of bruised cloves is therefore roughly a quarter-ounce (about 7.5-8 g) of each, which is about a tablespoon of cloves.
- Three pintsCassell's is using imperial pints of 20 fl oz, so three pints is 60 fl oz, about 1.7 litres. Scale the spices down if you are working from a 70 cl bottle: roughly 3 g each of cloves and cassia buds, a pinch of peppercorns, a small piece of mace.
- The spiritUnspecified, as it often is in these books. An unaged grain spirit or a neutral vodka at 40% keeps the spice clean; brandy gives a rounder, older-tasting cordial.
- Cassia budsThe unripe flower buds of the cassia tree, sold by spice merchants and still used in pickling blends. They taste of cinnamon with a clove edge. A broken cinnamon or cassia stick is the nearest substitute, though it infuses more slowly and less floridly.
- "Near the fire" for forty-eight hoursA warm spot, not a hot one. The little hot water presumably starts the extraction before the spirit goes in; a warm airing cupboard or the top of a boiler will serve over the two days.
- StrainingThe liquid will be cloudy with spice dust. Strain through muslin, then let it stand a day and decant off the sediment, or pass it through a coffee filter. Clove oil is a strong flavour and clove grit is a gritty one.
- SugarTwo tablespoons in nearly two litres is barely sweet by modern standards, closer to a bitters than a liqueur. Taste after a week and add sugar syrup if you want it to read as a cordial rather than a spiced spirit.
- CochinealStill sold as carmine or natural red colouring. It is purely cosmetic here and can be left out; it is an insect-derived dye, which matters if you are serving vegetarians or vegans.
- Yield and useAbout 1.7 litres. It improves with a month in a dark cupboard and is best served in very small glasses, or used a teaspoon at a time to spice mulled wine, hot water or a punch.
Cordials of this kind sat on the boundary between the drinks cupboard and the medicine chest. Clove, cassia, pepper and mace were among the spices traditionally counted as "hot" in the old pharmacopoeia, credited with settling the stomach and warming the chilled, and clove oil in particular was the household remedy for toothache long before it was a baking flavour. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, compiled for late-Victorian middle-class households, sets such spirit infusions alongside its ratafias and shrubs, and the note of "probable cost, 3d. or 4d., exclusive of the spirit" suggests why they were made at home: the spices were trivially cheap, the duty-paid spirit was not, and the mistress of the house was expected to know what her cordial was worth. The word cordial itself comes from the Latin cor, heart, from the old belief that such drinks were heart-strengthening.