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Orange Liqueur
Stick half a dozen cloves into a fine Seville orange, put it into an earthen jar with one pint and a half of rectified spirits, or best gin, and leave it for a month. Boil one pound and a quarter of loaf sugar quickly with half a pint of water, pour it into the spirit, and leave it for another month. Filter the liqueur through blotting-paper, pour it into bottles, cork securely, and store for use. Probable cost, exclusive of the spirit, 7d. Sufficient for nearly three pints of liqueur.
A two-stage steeping liqueur: a whole bitter orange in spirit for a month, then sweetened and rested a month more. Nothing here is difficult, but the ingredients and measures need translating.
- Seville oranges are seasonalThe bitter orange (Citrus aurantium) appears in shops for a few weeks in January and February and is the whole point of the recipe — a sweet eating orange gives a flat, syrupy result. Buy unwaxed fruit, since the entire peel steeps in the spirit; scrub waxed fruit in hot water first.
- Imperial measuresThis is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz (568 ml). One and a half pints of spirit is about 850 ml, and the half pint of water for the syrup is about 285 ml.
- Rectified spiritsRectified spirit is neutral alcohol at very high strength, sold to Victorian households by chemists and no longer generally available in the UK. The recipe's own alternative — "best gin" — is the practical choice; a plain vodka works if you do not want the juniper.
- Strength of the finished liqueurThe syrup roughly doubles the volume, so gin at 40% ABV comes out near 20% — light for a liqueur. Using a stronger overproof spirit keeps it nearer 30%.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold as a solid cone and broken up with nippers. Ordinary granulated or caster sugar is the same thing; 1¼ lb is about 570 g. Boil only until dissolved and clear, and let the syrup cool before it goes into the spirit, or you will drive off alcohol.
- Keep the orange submergedThe fruit must stay under the spirit for the whole month. Any part left proud of the liquid can mould and taint the batch — use a jar narrow enough that the orange cannot float clear, or weight it with a small saucer.
- FilteringBlotting-paper was one of the household filter media of the day. A paper coffee filter or a double thickness of muslin does the same work; expect it to run slowly, and do not force it, as the clarity is the only reason for the step.
- Yield and keepingJust under three imperial pints, roughly 1.7 litres. Sealed and kept dark, it keeps well. Serve in small glasses after a meal.
Household liqueur-making of this kind sat somewhere between cookery and the medicine chest: the same steeping-in-spirit technique produced cordials, ratafias and tinctures, and such recipes travelled from stillroom books into general cookbooks. Seville oranges reached Britain from Spain in midwinter and were prized for the bitterness of peel and pith rather than juice — the same quality that makes them the marmalade orange. The costing of 7d, given "exclusive of the spirit", is a reminder of where the expense lay: sugar and fruit were cheap, duty-paid alcohol was not.