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Summer Beverages
Recipes for various summer beverages will be found under their respective headings. We give here, however, a few additional recipes. Aerated Beverages.--These may be enjoyed in every household by the employment of a gazogene. This is a portable apparatus for aerating water and other liquids. It is to be obtained in many different forms, but in all the principle is the same. In one compartment powders are placed for generating carbonic acid gas, in another is the liquid to be aerated. The two compartments communicate with each other by a suitable tube, and a second tube furnished with a spring tap affords a means of exit for the aerated liquid. By means of the gazogene water, wine, ale, etc., may in a few minutes be rendered brisk and piquant by means of carbonic acid. By the employment of fruit syrups manufactured from English and foreign fruits, the most delicious aerated summer beverages may be produced. "Bomba."--This is a pleasant drink common in Italy. It is made by blanching about two ounces of sweet almonds, and rubbing them down to a smooth pulp in a mortar with an equal weight of sugar; to this a single bitter almond should be added, and also rubbed down to a paste. One quart of water should be gradually added in a fine stream to this pulp, an assistant keeping the pestle continually rolling to ensure perfect admixture. This is peculiarly grateful and delicate in taste.
Cheese or Milk Whey.--This is an excellent drink in summer-time. So also is buttermilk, especially when the cows feed on good fresh herbage. In northern countries, buttermilk is kept till it becomes sour, and separates into a curd or whey, which possesses considerable acidity, but notwithstanding is exceedingly wholesome, and forms a refreshing beverage. In the North it is a common drink with labourers.
Cider Cup.--Take two pint bottles of cider, two glassfuls of sherry, and one of liqueur. Add the juice of one lemon and half of the peel cut thin, two table-spoonfuls of pounded sugar, and the white of an egg beaten to a froth and poured over the mixture. Ice well.
Cool Tankard.--Put into a quart of mild ale a wine-glassful of white wine, the same of brandy and capillaire, the juice of a lemon, and a little piece of the rind. Add a sprig of borage or balm, a bit of toasted bread, and nutmeg, grated, on the top.
Cooling Drink.--Dissolve six table-spoonfuls of pounded sugar in a tumblerful of water, pour it into a large jug with a bottle of claret; stir, and add one bottle of champagne and two of soda-water, and ice well. Cranberry Drink.--Put a tea-cupful of cranberries into a cupful of water, and mash them. Boil, in the meantime, two quarts of water with one large spoonful of oatmeal and a bit of lemon-peel; add the cranberries, and sugar (but not too much, otherwise the fine sharpness of the fruit will be destroyed), and a quarter of a pint of white wine, or less, according to taste; boil for half an hour, and strain.
Curds and Whey (a cheap method).--Add six grains of citric acid to a wine-glassful of milk, and the result will be a pleasant acidulous whey and a fine curd.
Curds and Whey (Italian method).--Take several of the rough coats that line the gizzards of turkeys and fowls, cleanse from the dirt, rub well with salt, and hang them up to dry; when required for use, break off some of the skin, pour boiling water on, digest for eight or nine hours, and use the same as rennet.
Fruit Beverages.--These may be manufactured from nearly all the fruits which can be made into jams. The jam is to be prepared as usual, and a small portion, say about two ounces, stirred in a quart of water. For summer use the following jams or pulps are specially refreshing. Tamarinds (very much used in Italy, especially in conjunction with effervescent waters), black currant jelly, raspberry jam, vinegar, or syrup, apple jelly, and quince jam. Ginger Beer (Dr. Kitchener's recipe).--To eleven gallons of water put ten pounds of loaf sugar, half a pound of bruised ginger, the rind of four lemons, and the whites of four eggs beaten into a firm froth; mix them all well together while cold, and put the preparation into a copper. As soon as it boils, skim it well, and then pour it into a cooler, and put to it two ounces of cream of tartar and the inside of six lemons sliced and the pips taken out. When it is nearly cold, put into a cloth four table-spoonfuls of yeast, and pour the liquor in upon it over a cask. When done working, bung it up, and let it stand a fortnight; then bottle it off, and it will be fit for drinking in about ten days.
Ginger Beer (other ways).--Take a pound and a half of common brown sugar or treacle, a gallon and a half of water, an ounce of ground ginger, and a lemon if liked. Boil, and then add yeast. 2.--Dissolve four ounces of candied ginger in two gallons and a quarter of boiling water, add two pounds of sugar, one ounce of powdered citric acid, when nearly cold, and two table-spoonfuls of yeast.
Lemonade.--This favourite beverage is easily made and extremely refreshing. To make a quart, take two lemons or more, according to taste, pare off thinly a little of the rind, or rub lumps of sugar upon it. Squeeze out the juice of the fruit, and mix with it two ounces of white sugar, including what has been rubbed upon the lemons. Add boiling hot water, and when cool enough strain the liquor. Dilute the preparation with water to the strength required. Should lemons not be in season, syrup of lemons may be used, or crystallised citric acid and sugar, adding a few drops of the essence of lemon. Lemonade, like all similar drinks, is rendered much more refreshing by being iced. Lemonade (au lait).--Take half a pint of lemon-juice, the same of white wine, three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar, and a quart of boiling water. Mix, and when cold add a pint of boiling milk. Let it stand twelve hours, then pour through a jelly-bag. This makes two quarts; about seven lemons will produce half a pint of juice.
Lemonade (Soyer's recipe).--Thinly peel the third part of a lemon, which put into a basin with two table-spoonfuls of sugar. Roll the lemon with your hand upon the table to soften it; cut it in two lengthwise, squeeze the juice over the peel, etc., stir round for a minute with a spoon to form a sort of syrup, pour over a pint of water, mix well, and remove the pips; it will then be ready for use. If a very large lemon and full of juice and very fresh, you may make a pint and a half to a quart, adding sugar and peel in proportion to the increase of water. The juice only of the lemon and sugar will make lemonade, but it will then be deprived of the aroma which the rind contains, the said rind being generally thrown away.
Mint Julep.--Put about a dozen of the young sprigs of mint into a tumbler. Add a table-spoonful of white sugar, half a wine-glassful of peach brandy, and the same of French brandy, then fill up the tumbler with pounded ice. Nectar.--This is a very simple and pleasant drink, and generally liked. Dissolve two pounds of loaf sugar in three quarts of hot water. When cool, add quite half an ounce of tartaric or, preferably, citric acid, and a tea-spoonful of fresh essence of lemon. Colour according to fancy with burnt sugar, strain, and bottle. This preparation will keep two or three weeks, and is the better for being made a few days before it is wanted. Orangeade.--Squeeze out the juice of an orange, pour boiling water on a little of the peel, and cover it close. Boil water and sugar to a thin syrup, and skim it. When all are cold, mix the juice, the infusion, and the syrup with as much more water as will make a rich drink. Strain through a jelly-beg, and ice.
Orgeat.--Blanch and pound three-quarters of a pound of sweet almonds and thirty bitter ones with a table-spoonful of water. Stir in by degrees two pints of water and three pints of milk, and strain the whole through a cloth. Dissolve half a pound of loaf sugar in a pint of water, boil, skim well, and mix with the almond water, adding two table-spoonfuls of orange-flower water, and a tea-cupful of good brandy.
Quince Syrup.--Grate quinces, pass the pulp through a sieve, then set it before the fire for the juice to settle and clarify; strain, and add a pound of sugar (boiled down) to every four ounces of juice; remove from the fire, and when cold bottle for use. A table-spoonful of this syrup will flavour a pint of water.
Raspberry Vinegar.--This is made by squeezing the juice of three quarts of raspberries into a quart of vinegar, and then simmering the vinegar for about a quarter of an hour with two pounds of sugar in an earthen pipkin not glazed with lead. When cold it is to be corked; and a small spoonful of this in a glassful of water makes a very cooling and refreshing drink. (For other ways see RASPBERRY VINEGAR.) Sherry Cobbler.--Take some very fine and clean ice, break it into small pieces, fill a tumbler to within an inch of the top with it, put in a table-spoonful of plain syrup, capillaire, or any other flavour--some prefer strawberry--add the quarter of the zest of a lemon and a few drops of the juice. Fill with sherry, stir it up, and let it stand for five or six minutes. Sip gently through a straw.
Sodiac Powders.--Take five drachms of citric or tartaric acid, pound it fine, and divide it into twelve parts, folding each in a white paper. Take six drachms of carbonate of soda, pound it fine, and fold it in blue papers. Half fill two half pint tumblers with water; stir into one a powder from the white paper, in the other one from the blue; when the powders are quite dissolved pour one to the other, and perfect soda-water will be instantaneously produced in its utmost perfection.
Supreme Nectar.--Put into a nine-gallon cask six pounds of moist sugar, five ounces of bruised ginger, four ounces of cream of tartar, four lemons, eight ounces of yeast, and seven gallons of boiling water. Work two or three days, strain, add one pint of brandy, bung very close, and in fourteen days bottle and wire down.
Tamarind Drink.--Boil three pints of water with an ounce and a half of tamarinds, three ounces of currants, and two ounces of stoned raisins, till about a third has evaporated. Strain, add a bit of lemon-peel, which is to be removed in half an hour, then cool.
Vinegar and Water.--"It is commonly known that cold water is dangerous when used by persons heated with labour or by any severe exercise; and yet it is necessary to supply the waste and exhaustion of perspiration in some way or other. When spirits or wine are added in small quantities to the water it may be used, even if cold, with little danger; but severe labour or exercise excites a danger of fever, and that fever is increased by spirits or fermented liquor of any kind. On this account, Dr. Rush, in one of his publications, recommends that labourers in the fields, particularly at harvest-time, should allay their thirst by water containing a small quantity of vinegar (about a tea-spoonful to half a pint of water), which would have the desired effect without stimulating or increasing the heat of the body; and he states that those laborers who have used this beverage have found themselves more refreshed and less exhausted at night than when they drank water with spirits. This is not a modern practice merely; for the Romans used vinegar to mix with water for the drink of their soldiers."