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Gingerette
Pick and bruise one pound of either white or black currants, fully ripe, and put them, with the thinly-peeled rind of a lemon, into one pint of unsweetened gin. Cork closely, and leave for three days, then strain. Add half an ounce of freshly-ground ginger, and one pound of loaf sugar. Leave the gingerette a week longer, stir it every day, strain once more, and bottle for use. Probable cost, 10d., exclusive of the spirit. Sufficient for one quart.
A cold-infused gin cordial of the sort British households made up in currant season. Nothing is cooked, so the whole thing depends on the fruit being ripe and the straining being thorough.
- Which currantsThese are fresh Ribes currants — blackcurrants or the pale white variety — not the dried vine fruit sold as currants in modern shops. If neither is available, redcurrants behave much the same, though the colour and acidity differ from blackcurrant.
- Imperial measuresA British pint is 20 fl oz, so "one pint of gin" is 2½ US cups. Half an ounce of ground ginger is roughly 2½ to 3 level tablespoons, and loaf sugar — sold then in hard cones to be broken up — is simply granulated white sugar.
- Unsweetened ginNineteenth-century gin was often sold sweetened. "Unsweetened" means a dry London-style gin; the recipe supplies its own pound of sugar and will be cloying if you start from Old Tom or a sloe gin.
- The hinge: grind the ginger lastDried ground ginger loses its volatile heat over a few months. Grating a piece of dried root, or opening a fresh jar, is the difference between a cordial that tastes of ginger and one that tastes of dusty sugar.
- Lemon rind, thinly peeledTake the zest only, in strips, with no white pith. Pith infused in spirit for three days turns bitter and will not strain out.
- Vessels"Cork closely" means an airtight glass jar — a preserving jar with a good seal does the job. Avoid metal lids in direct contact with the acidic liquid.
- Straining twice, and whyThe first strain removes fruit pulp; the second is aimed at the ginger, which never dissolves. Line a sieve with damp muslin, and let the bottled cordial stand a further week so any fine sediment settles, then decant off the clear liquid.
- Yield and keepingAbout a quart (roughly 1.1 litres). The sugar and the spirit base together make it stable at room temperature for a year or more; serve in small glasses, or over ice with soda.
Flavoured spirits like this were a routine part of the British still-room year: soft fruit came in a glut, gin was cheap and neutral, and a pound of sugar turned both into something that kept until Christmas. Cassell's gives the cost as tenpence "exclusive of the spirit" — a reminder that these books were written for households counting pennies, and that the expensive part was assumed to be already in the cupboard. The name is most likely simply ginger with a diminutive ending, the same formula often seen in anisette on French labels, and it belongs to a family of domestic cordials — cherry brandy, sloe gin, blackcurrant rum — made by steeping rather than distilling. Ginger's presence is characteristically Victorian: it was one of the cheapest warming spices in the grocer's shop, and turns up in everything from beer and biscuits to invalid cookery of the same period.