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Sangaree, Strong
Put into a stone jar a pint and a half of cherry brandy, a quarter of a pint of lime-juice, three pints of Madeira wine, three quarts of French brandy, two pounds of loaf sugar, three-quarters of a pound of preserved guavas sliced, two ounces each of candied citron and lemon sliced, two ounces of preserved ginger sliced, half an ounce each of cinnamon and cloves beaten fine, one ounce each of cinnamon and cloves beaten fine, one ounce each of nutmeg and Jamaica pepper, two ounces of pistachio nuts blanched and beaten, half an ounce of bitter almonds blanched and beaten, three-quarters of an ounce each of gum arabic and gum dragon dissolved. Beat the almonds and nuts to a paste with a spoonful of orange-flower water. Make a pleasant mixture of the Madeira, lime-juice, and loaf sugar; pour it to the other ingredients, cork and seal the jar, and set it in hot water to infuse the greater part of a day. In twelve hours shake it well, and keep it in a warm temperature six weeks, after which it may be stored. In twelve or fifteen months strain it off, filter it several times until it is beautifully bright, then put it in small bottles, which cork well and seal, and in six months more it will be excellent.
This is a long-keeping West Indian style punch cordial, and one of its ingredients rules it out entirely. The notes below explain the hazard and gloss the archaic terms, but the recipe should not be attempted.
- The bitter almonds are the reason to stopHalf an ounce of blanched bitter almonds beaten to a paste is roughly a dozen kernels. Bitter almonds contain amygdalin, which can release hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is crushed and wetted, exactly what this method does. The jar is stood in hot water for the better part of a day, but it is corked and sealed and the kernels stay in the liquor throughout. Unprocessed bitter almonds may not be sold for eating in the United States and are restricted elsewhere.
- Cold infusion concentrates the problemThe infusion carries it through -- The almond paste sits in spirit for a year or more and is then strained, filtered and bottled, so soluble matter from the kernels ends up in the finished liquor, which is drunk neat.
- The spice list is corruptCinnamon and cloves appear twice in contradictory quantities, half an ounce each and then one ounce each. This looks like a printing or copying error, and there is no way to know which line the author intended.
- Jamaica pepperAn old name for allspice, the dried berry of Pimenta dioica, not a chilli and not black pepper.
- Gum arabic and gum dragonGum arabic is acacia gum; gum dragon is gum tragacanth. Both were used in cordials of this kind to give body, and both survive as food additives, though a modern cordial would not need them.
- Units and vesselsAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so the quantities are larger than American readers expect: three imperial quarts of brandy is about three and three-fifths US quarts. The "stone jar" is a glazed stoneware crock, which would not react with acid and spirit.
- If you want a sangareeUse a current recipe. Nineteenth-century punches of this type are easy to reproduce without any almond kernel at all.
Sangaree is the English rendering of the Spanish sangría, and in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century usage it usually meant something closer to a fortified wine punch than to the fruit-and-red-wine drink the word denotes today — Madeira or port, sugar, citrus and a heavy dusting of nutmeg, drunk in the West Indies and copied in Britain and America. This "strong" version belongs to a distinct genre: the long-keeping bottled punch, compounded in a crock, warmed to start the infusion, then aged for a year or more so the spices, gums and preserved fruits marry and the liquid can be filtered bright. Guavas, preserved ginger and candied citron place it firmly in the colonial trade, and the bitter almonds and orange-flower water reflect a period taste for a marzipan-like note in cordials, a habit that persisted in cookery books long after chemists had identified why it was dangerous.