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Syrup for Liqueurs
Put a pint of water in a preserving-pan over the fire. When it boils, drop gradually into it half a pound of sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, let it boil up, skim it, and pour it out. When cold it will be fit for use.
A plain sugar syrup, made deliberately thin because it is meant to be added to spirit-based cordials rather than used as a sweetener on its own. The only technical points are the ratio and how you keep it.
- The measuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, or 2½ cups; half a pound of sugar is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (225 g). That works out to roughly a 1:2.5 syrup by weight — much thinner than the 1:1 or 2:1 simple syrups usual in modern drink-making.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy pan, often untinned copper or brass. Any wide stainless or enamelled saucepan does the same job here; the width of such pans was mainly for fast evaporation, which matters little in a syrup that is not to be reduced.
- Add the sugar to boiling water, not the reverseThe instruction to drop the sugar in gradually once the water boils keeps it from settling in a mass on the bottom and scorching. Stir until no grains are visible on the base of the pan before you let it return to the boil.
- Why it is skimmedSkimming boiled syrup was routine practice, sugar of the period being liable to throw a scum. Modern refined granulated sugar generally produces little or none, so expect not much to remove.
- Do not boil it down"Let it boil up" means bring it back to the boil and take it off — not reduce it. Prolonged boiling concentrates the syrup and changes the strength of whatever liqueur you add it to.
- Yield and keepingRather more than the 2½ cups of water you started with, the dissolved sugar adding bulk. At this low sugar concentration the syrup is not self-preserving: refrigerate it in a clean sealed bottle and use it within a week or two, discarding it at the first sign of cloudiness or mould.
- How it is usedCool completely before combining with spirit, as the recipe directs. Warm syrup poured into infused brandy or spirit will drive off aroma.
Home-made liqueurs and cordials were a standing part of the English still-room for centuries, and by the late nineteenth century the method had settled into two stages: steep fruit, peel, kernels or spices in brandy or plain spirit, then sweeten with a syrup made separately so the maker could judge the sweetness at the end. That is why this entry sits among the principles rather than with any single drink or atafias, noyaus and fruit brandies. Keeping the sugar out of the infusion also had a practical reason: sugar slows the extraction of flavour from fruit. Thin syrups of this sort were generally known simply as simple syrup, though the name varied with the household and with whether anything aromatic had been added.