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ORANGEADE (for keeping)
Pour a pint of brandy, or rectified spirits of wine, over the thin rind and strained juice of two oranges. Cover the infusion closely, and leave in a warm place for six weeks, shaking it every day. At the end of that time filter it through muslin, and put it into small bottles. Cork these closely, and store them until wanted. When orangeade is required, it is only necessary to dissolve a small lump of sugar in half a pint of spring water, and add a dessert-spoonful of the orange-flavoured spirit. Probable cost, 2d., exclusive of the brandy. Sufficient for a pint of orangeade.
This is not a drink but a flavouring essence: a high-proof orange tincture kept in small bottles, a spoonful of which turns a glass of water into orangeade. The whole method rests on the peel, so start there.
- Thin rind means zest onlyPare the rind with a peeler or zester and take none of the white pith, which turns bitter and cloudy over six weeks in spirit. Use unwaxed or well-scrubbed oranges, since the wax and any post-harvest coating dissolve straight into the alcohol.
- Rectified spirits of wineIn a Victorian household this meant high-strength food-grade ethanol bought from a chemist, roughly 90 per cent alcohol. The modern equivalent is a neutral grain spirit such as Everclear; never substitute methylated, denatured or surgical spirit, which contains methanol and other poisons and is not drinkable in any quantity.
- Brandy works and is easierAt 40 per cent alcohol brandy extracts more slowly than rectified spirit but gives a rounder result, and the six-week infusion is long enough to compensate. Expect a deeper colour and a distinctly brandy backbone in the finished glass.
- Six weeks is generousCitrus oil is in the flakes of peel and moves fast; two to three weeks in a warm spot gives most of what you will get, and longer steeping mainly deepens the bitterness from any pith that slipped through. Taste at two weeks and bottle when it suits you.
- FilteringMuslin catches the peel but little else. Strain through muslin first, then a paper coffee filter, if you want the clear liquid the original bottles would have held.
- The measuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so half a pint of water is about 285 ml, or just under a US cup and a quarter. A dessertspoonful is 2 teaspoons, and a small lump of period sugar was probably about a teaspoon's worth; adjust the sugar to the water rather than the spirit.
- Yield and keepingTwo oranges and a pint of spirit make a great deal of essence: at a dessertspoonful (about 10 ml) a glass, a pint of spirit is some 55 doses, which is roughly 28 pints of orangeade at the half-pint dilution given in the method, though the recipe's own footer implies a spoonful to the pint. Corked tightly and kept dark, the tincture holds for years, though the fresh top notes of the peel fade after the first several months.
- ServingCold spring or filtered water was the point. Sparkling water and a strip of fresh peel make it read as a modern soft drink, and the same essence is useful by the half-teaspoon in cakes, custards and cocktails.
Cassell's places this among the keeping recipes, the class of preparations designed to hold a flavour through the year with no refrigeration. Alcohol tinctures of citrus peel were a common Victorian answer, and the technique is the same one that underlies orange bitters, curaçao and the commercial "essences" that grocers sold: peel steeped in spirit, filtered, and doled out by the spoonful. The costing tells you how the book expected to be read, with the twopence covering only the two oranges and the sugar and the brandy left out of the reckoning. That the drink is assembled a glass at a time, from water and one spoonful, may also reflect a kitchen where nothing could be kept cold once opened.