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Lemon, Essence of, Artificial
Mix gradually a drachm of the best oil of lemons with two ounces of rectified spirits of wine. Cork securely.
A two-ingredient flavouring extract of the kind Victorian households bought by the ounce or mixed themselves. The whole thing hinges on using an oil sold for food use and adding it to the spirit slowly enough that it dissolves rather than beading on the surface.
- A drachmIn apothecaries' measure a fluid drachm is one-eighth of a fluid ounce, about 3.5 ml or three-quarters of a teaspoon. If the weight drachm is meant it is about 3.9 g, which for an oil of this density works out nearer 4.5 ml; the two readings are close enough for the purpose, though not identical.
- Two ounces of spiritProbably fluid ounces; at the period's 28.4 ml that is about 57 ml, giving a finished quantity of roughly 60 ml, which is a small commercial extract bottle.
- Rectified spirits of wineNeutral ethanol at around 90 per cent, sold to Victorian households through the chemist. The nearest modern equivalent is a high-proof grain spirit such as Everclear; vodka at 40 per cent will not hold this much oil in solution and the mixture will separate and go cloudy.
- Oil of lemonsCold-pressed oil from the peel, not a synthetic compound and not a lemon-scented oil sold for polishing or diffusers. Buy one labelled food grade or for flavouring use; the perfumery and aromatherapy grades are not intended to be swallowed.
- Why "artificial"The word here most likely means manufactured rather than synthetic. Essences were also made by rubbing the spirit into the zest or steeping peel in it; this version starts from the isolated oil instead, which is probably why the book files it as the artificial one.
- Mix graduallyAdd the oil to the spirit in a thin thread while stirring. Tipped in all at once it beads on the surface and needs more stirring to disperse.
- Strength and useThis works out at roughly one part oil to sixteen of spirit, about 6 per cent of the finished bottle. How that compares with any given modern extract varies, so add cautiously and taste.
- StorageCork securely for good reason: citrus oil oxidises on contact with air and turns turpentiney within months. Fill a small dark bottle to the shoulder, keep it cool, and treat it as a year's supply rather than a decade's.
Home-made essences fill several pages of late-Victorian cookery books because the alternative was buying them, and bought flavourings had a bad reputation — adulteration of commercial extracts was a running scandal through the 1870s and 1880s, and a cook who mixed her own from a chemist's oil and a chemist's spirit knew exactly what was in the bottle. The oil itself came from the Mediterranean citrus trade, expressed from lemon peel by hand-pressing in Sicily and Calabria long before machinery took the work over, and it reached British kitchens through the same druggists who supplied the spirit. However it was catalogued, it was regarded less as a dish than as a piece of standing equipment, made once and drawn on for months of cakes, custards and icings.