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Ginger Cordial
Pick two pounds of white or black currants. Bruise them slightly, and mix with them one ounce and a half of ground ginger. Pour over them one quart of good whisky or brandy, and let them stand for two days. Strain off the liquid, add one pound of loaf sugar, boiled to a syrup, with a small tea-cupful of water. Bottle, and cork closely for use. Probable cost, 1s. 3d., exclusive of the spirit. Sufficient for three pints of cordial.
A steeped spirit rather than a cooked one, so the only real work is in reading the ingredients correctly. Two of them mean something different now than they did in 1900.
- Currants means the fresh berriesWhite or black currants here are the fresh fruit of Ribes, picked off their strigs, not the dried Zante currants sold in the baking aisle. Redcurrants substitute for white without complaint; blackcurrants give a much darker, muskier cordial.
- Imperial measuresA quart of spirit is 40 fl oz, about 1.1 litres, so a standard 750 ml bottle is short by roughly a third. The "small tea-cupful of water" is about 5 fl oz, 150 ml.
- Loaf sugarLoaf or lump sugar was refined cane sugar broken from a cone. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the same thing; use a pound, about 450 g, dissolved in the water and brought just to a boil.
- Cool the syrup firstThe recipe does not say so, but it is worth letting the syrup come down before it meets the strained spirit; hot syrup may drive off some of the alcohol.
- Ground ginger settles outAn ounce and a half of ground ginger, about 40 g, will not dissolve. Strain through muslin or a coffee filter after the two days, and expect to filter twice if you want the bottle clear rather than cloudy.
- Two days is the minimum, not the idealTwo days is what the recipe gives -- The instruction works; a longer steep in a cool dark place is possible if you prefer a stronger extraction. Taste as it goes.
- Yield and keepingThree pints, so about 1.7 litres, or five 350 ml bottles. Sugar and spirit together make it keep for a year or more; serve in small glasses, or over ice with soda.
"Cordial" comes from the Latin cor, heart, and the word carried its medicinal sense well into the nineteenth century: a sweetened spirit taken in small quantities as a restorative rather than a drink for its own sake. Ginger was among the warming ingredients in that tradition, prescribed against chills and indigestion, and ginger cordials, ginger wines and ginger beers all sat somewhere on the line between the medicine cupboard and the sideboard. What makes this version characteristic of Cassell's is the currants: any household with a kitchen garden had more currants in July than it could eat, and cordials, jellies and shrubs were how the glut was carried through the year. The costing is given as 1s 3d, pointedly excluding the spirit.