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Italian Lemonade
Slice one dozen lemons, add to them a pound of sugar, and let stand over night. In the morning strain, add one pint of sherry and three pints of boiling water. Beat or shake this well, then add one pint of boiling milk and strain.
Drink hot or cold.
This is not lemonade in the modern sense but a clarified milk punch, and the step that looks like a mistake — pouring boiling milk into wine and lemon — is the whole point of the recipe.
- The hinge: the milk must curdleBoiling milk hitting acidic lemon and sherry will seize into curds within seconds. That is intended; the curds trap tannins and cloudiness and are filtered out, leaving a silky, clear drink. Do not stir it smooth or panic and discard it.
- StrainingA wire sieve will not do for the final strain. Line it with damp muslin or a coffee filter and let it drip without pressing, which can take an hour or more. Squeezing the curds pushes solids through and clouds the result.
- Quantities and yieldA dozen lemons plus a pound of sugar, a pint of sherry and four pints of liquid gives roughly three quarts before straining and somewhat less after — about ten to eleven cups. Halving the recipe works without adjustment.
- Sliced, not juicedSlicing the whole fruit and macerating overnight with sugar draws oil from the peel as well as juice, which is where most of the aroma is. Use unwaxed lemons and scrub them.
- Overnight standingThe original assumes a cool larder. In a warm kitchen, cover and refrigerate the sliced fruit and sugar overnight; the sugar draws out juice just as well cold, only slightly slower.
- The sherryNineteenth-century "sherry" in a punch often meant a sweeter shipping style rather than a bone-dry fino. A medium-dry amontillado suits the sugar level here; cream sherry will make it cloying.
- MilkWhole milk curdles cleanly and gives the best body. Ultra-pasteurised milk sometimes curdles into a fine, sludgy suspension that clogs the cloth; ordinary pasteurised whole milk is more reliable.
- ServingStrained and bottled, it will keep refrigerated for several days — the acid and alcohol help, and clarified punches were traditionally made to be kept, though those relied on far more spirit than the single pint of sherry here. Serve cold in small glasses, or warm gently without boiling.
Clarified milk punch of this kind was a British and colonial fashion from the eighteenth century onward: spirit or wine, citrus, sugar and hot milk, curdled deliberately and filtered until clear, producing a drink that could keep for months in a corked bottle long before refrigeration. Why this one is called "Italian" is not documented; the lemon was strongly associated with Sicily, which supplied much of the fruit reaching American ports.