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Refreshing Beverage
Slice two oranges and one lemon, which put into a jug with two ounces of sugar-candy, over which pour one quart of boiling water; stir it occasionally until cold. This drink is good both for invalids and for persons in health, especially in warm weather.
A cold citrus infusion rather than a squeezed lemonade — the fruit sits in the water whole and sliced, peel included, so the flavour is more aromatic and faintly bitter than a modern lemon squash. Two things decide whether it is pleasant: the thickness of the pith and how long the slices stay in.
- Quantities in modern termsOne quart, if imperial as expected in a British book, is about 1.1 litres (a US quart would be about 950 ml). Two ounces of sugar-candy is about 55 g, which by modern taste is lightly sweetened for a litre of drink; taste once cool and add more if wanted.
- Sugar-candyLarge crystallised sugar, sold in lumps or on sticks and still available as rock sugar or coffee crystals. Plain granulated sugar dissolves faster and works identically here; the crystals were a well-refined form of sugar, alongside loaf and lump.
- The hinge: don't leave the peel inBoiling water extracts bitterness from pith and albedo quickly. Strain the fruit out once the jug has cooled to room temperature, or the drink turns harsh and medicinal by the next day.
- Slice thin, and wash the fruitThin rounds give the water more cut surface and a faster infusion. Since the peel is the main flavour source, scrub unwaxed fruit or rub waxed fruit under hot water first.
- Chilling and keepingRefrigerate after straining and drink within two days. Cut citrus in sugared water at room temperature for long stretches will start to ferment faintly, which is presumably why the original stops at "until cold."
- YieldAbout four large glasses. Serve over ice, and it takes well to a sprig of mint or a splash of soda water without straying from the original character.
Drinks like this belong to the Victorian sickroom as much as to the summer table. Citrus infusions were part of standard invalid cookery: cooling, mildly acid, easy on a patient who could not eat, and cheap enough to make daily once oranges and lemons became reliable winter imports in Britain through the second half of the nineteenth century. The phrasing — "good both for invalids and for persons in health" — is a common tic of the period's household manuals, which are often said to have drawn a fairly firm line between food for the sick and food for the well and liked to note when something crossed it. Sugar-candy, sold in lumps, seems to have carried a similar double life: it was reached for as a throat remedy as well as a sweetener, and appears in cough syrups and barley waters throughout the same books.