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Raspberry Nectar
Juice and grated yellow rind of two lemons 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup pineapple juice 1 1/2 cups raspberry juice 1/4 cup cherry juice (if desired) 1 quart water Allow it to stand one hour, then strain through cheesecloth. Serve ice-cold.
A summer fruit punch rather than a syrup: everything is combined cold, infused for an hour, and strained. The only real technique is in the lemon rind and in getting the sugar fully dissolved before it goes cold.
- The missing first stepThe original jumps straight to "allow it to stand," assuming you have already stirred the juices, zest, sugar and water together. Dissolve the sugar in a little of the water first, or in the lemon juice, before adding the rest; cold liquid holds granulated sugar in suspension badly and it will settle out.
- Grated yellow rindTake only the coloured outer layer of the two lemons with a rasp or fine grater. Any white pith carried along will turn the drink bitter over the hour of standing, and the bitterness does not strain out.
- Getting 1 1/2 cups raspberry juiceRoughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb of raspberries, crushed and pressed through a sieve or jelly bag. Frozen raspberries, thawed and pressed, give more juice than fresh. Do not boil them if you want the fresh flavour this drink depends on.
- Pineapple and cherry juiceUse unsweetened juice in both cases. Modern canned pineapple juice and bottled cherry juice are often sweetened, in which case cut the sugar back and taste before adding the last of it. The cherry juice is genuinely optional and mainly deepens the colour.
- The hour of standingThis is an infusion for the lemon zest, not a chilling step. Keep it refrigerated while it stands, then strain through a double layer of cheesecloth to catch the zest and any raspberry seeds and pulp.
- Serving cold without dilutingChill the strained nectar thoroughly rather than pouring it over a glassful of ice, which will thin an already light drink. If you want ice in the glass, freeze some of the nectar itself in cubes.
- YieldAbout 1 3/4 quarts, giving six to eight glasses. It keeps two or three days refrigerated, though the raspberry flavour fades after the first day.
Nectars, shrubs, and "fruit ades" occupied a large place in American household cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century, a period in which temperance sentiment made a well-made non-alcoholic punch a point of pride at church suppers, lawn parties and Sunday teas. The combining of a strong berry juice with citrus zest, a little sugar and a large volume of water follows the usual punch formula of the period. The pineapple juice may simply be the syrupless juice drained from canned pineapple, which was available well before canned pineapple juice was marketed as a product in its own right; it does not fix the recipe to a particular decade. The word nectar here carries no technical meaning -- it signalled something more festive than lemonade.