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Morella Cherry Brandy
Select fine ripe fruit gathered on a dry day; cut off the stalks to within an inch, and put the cherries at once into wide-necked quart bottles. Allow to every pound of fruit four ounces of white sugar-candy or loaf sugar, and a pint of the best brandy. Some cherry or peach kernels will improve the flavour; tie the bottles down with bladder, and store in a dry place. Do not put all the sugar at the top or bottom of the bottle, but distribute it equally amongst the cherries. Probable cost, 1s. to 1s. 6d. per pound.
A straightforward cold infusion — fruit, sugar and spirit left to steep — but one optional ingredient puts it outside what we would now put in a bottle.
- The kernels are the problemCherry and peach kernels contain amygdalin, which breaks down in contact with moisture and enzymes to release hydrogen cyanide. Stone kernels steeped in spirit were a familiar Victorian flavouring, prized for their bitter-almond note, and the dose here is entirely unmeasured — "some" kernels in an unspecified quantity of brandy, with no indication of whether they are to be cracked or left whole.
- Why the spirit does not helpAlcohol extracts the amygdalin along with the flavour rather than destroying it, and unlike a cooked dish there is no heating step at any point. The longer the bottle stands, the more is drawn out. Commercial kernel flavourings are made to controlled limits; a kitchen infusion is not.
- The rest of the method is sound in principleWhole fruit under sugar and spirit at brandy strength is a stable preserve, and the stalk left an inch long keeps the skin unbroken so the cherries do not collapse. The failure here is the flavouring, not the preservation. Anyone wanting cherry brandy should follow a current recipe.
- Sugar-candy and loaf sugarBoth are simply cane sugar in another form — sugar-candy being large slow-grown crystals, loaf sugar the cone of refined sugar broken up with nippers. Neither is a distinct ingredient; the instruction to distribute it through the bottle rather than heap it at one end presumably concerns even dissolution, as nothing is stirred.
- Bladder as a sealA wetted pig's bladder tied over the neck shrank tight as it dried and gave a nearly airtight cover before rubber and screw caps were common in the home. It is a historical detail rather than a usable instruction.
- The costingOne shilling to eighteenpence a pound cannot cover the brandy, at a pint to the pound of fruit, which was by far the greater expense; the figure appears to be for the cherries alone.
"Morella" is a common nineteenth-century spelling of Morello, the dark, sharp cooking cherry (Prunus cerasus), grown in Kent and other English fruit districts and too acid to be much enjoyed raw. Steeping it in spirit was a classic English answer: the sugar draws juice from the fruit, the brandy takes up the colour and acidity, and the household is left with both a cordial and a jar of boozy cherries. Recipes of this kind appear in English domestic manuals from the seventeenth century onward, usually under "cherry brandy" or "ratafia", and the kernel addition belongs to the same tradition as ratafia biscuits and noyau — a deliberate hunt for the bitter-almond note that we now get from benzaldehyde flavouring instead.<br><br>The recipe gives no steeping time at all; the bottle went into the store cupboard and was opened when wanted.