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Nutmeg, Tincture Of
Grate three ounces of nutmeg; put the powder into a quart bottle, and fill it up with good brandy or spirits of wine. Cork it, and shake it well every day for a fortnight, then pour off the liquid, leaving the sediment behind. Put the tincture into small bottles, cork these closely, and store for use. Probable cost, according to the quality of the spirit. Sufficient, three drops to flavour half a pint of liquid.
This is a homemade nutmeg extract, the Victorian equivalent of the little bottle of flavouring you now buy ready-made. Nothing about it is difficult, but two things need saying: what "spirits of wine" meant, and how little of the finished tincture is meant to be used.
- Spirits of wineIn a Victorian cookery book this means rectified spirit — high-strength drinkable ethanol, around 90 per cent. It does not mean methylated or denatured alcohol from a hardware shop, which contains methanol and is poisonous. Use brandy, or a neutral grain spirit sold for drinking, at the highest proof you can buy.
- QuantitiesThree ounces is about 85 g of nutmeg — roughly a dozen whole nutmegs, which is a substantial outlay. A quart here is the imperial quart, 40 fl oz or about 1.1 litres; halving or quartering the whole recipe gives a more sensible amount for a domestic store cupboard.
- Grate, do not powderGrate, not dust -- The recipe calls the grated nutmeg 'the powder', but a fine rasp rather than a spice mill is easier to work with: coarser grated shreds settle more readily and leave a clearer liquid to pour off.
- The fortnight mattersNutmeg's aroma sits in volatile oils that dissolve in strong alcohol. The daily shaking speeds the extraction along; left entirely undisturbed for two weeks the tincture will likely be weaker, though it will still draw.
- Decanting"Pour off the liquid, leaving the sediment behind" means decant rather than filter — tip it gently and stop before the sludge moves. Passing what remains through a coffee filter recovers a little more, though it will take some time.
- Strength in useThree drops to half a pint of liquid is not a misprint. This is a concentrated extract, not a liqueur: treat it as you would vanilla extract, by the drop into custards, mulled drinks, eggnog, batters and sauces.
- Do not drink it neatNutmeg in quantity is genuinely intoxicating and unpleasantly toxic — myristicin causes nausea, racing heart and hours of confusion. In the doses this recipe intends, a few drops in a pudding, that is irrelevant; taken by the spoonful from the bottle it is not.
- StorageSmall, tightly corked bottles kept dark and cool are exactly right, and the reasoning holds today: less air space and no light means the oils keep their aroma. Stored this way it will remain good for a year or more.
This belongs to a class of kitchen preparations the Victorian housekeeper made in bulk and drew on all year — essences, tinctures and flavouring spirits of lemon peel, almond, cinnamon and vanilla. Commercial flavouring extracts existed by the 1870s, and adulteration of shop-bought essences was a standing scandal of the period, so a cook who macerated her own nutmeg in brandy knew what was in the bottle. The method itself is straight pharmacy practice, and the word tincture gives it away; the same maceration in rectified spirit filled the shelves of every dispensing chemist, and nutmeg tincture appeared in medical use as a carminative as well as in the kitchen. The Dutch monopoly on the Banda Islands had been broken early in the nineteenth century and cultivation spread to Grenada, which is still a principal source.