Kirschenwasser
This cherry-water is an excellent and wholesome liqueur made in the Black Forest from geans. It is sometimes fiery, and many persons are afraid of it who have no fear of maraschino, which is also made from geans. The flavour of the Black Forest cherry-water is, however, much more simple than that of the Dalmatian liqueur, and pleases the palate longer; only to put the two liqueurs on a level for fair comparison it is necessary to manipulate the Kirschenwasser. Put some into a strong glass, or better, into a saucer. Take a lump of sugar, dip it into the liquid, set fire to it, and replace it in the saucer, so that the whole may take flame. When the flame expires and the sugar is dissolved, taste the cherry-water, and see if it be not superior to any Maraschino. It whiles away ten minutes after dinner in a pretty little blue-flamed game to burn the cherry-water and bring it to the perfection fit for my lady's taste.
This is less a recipe than a table trick: a small pour of cherry brandy sweetened and softened by burning off some of its alcohol. A few points on the vocabulary and on doing it without setting the cloth alight.
- GeansAn old Scots and northern English name for the wild sweet cherry, Prunus avium — small, dark and sharper than a cultivated dessert cherry. Black Forest kirsch is distilled from these small black cherries, pits included.
- KirschenwasserNow normally spelled Kirschwasser or simply kirsch. Look for an unaged, unsweetened fruit eau-de-vie, clear and around 40-45% alcohol, not a sweet red "cherry brandy" liqueur, which will not behave the same way.
- Maraschino, for the comparisonThe Dalmatian liqueur is made from Marasca cherries and is sweetened, so it is heavier and more perfumed than dry kirsch. That sweetness is exactly what the burnt sugar here is supplying.
- QuantityNo amount is given. A tablespoon or two per person in a shallow, heatproof saucer is enough; a deep glass traps vapour and gives a taller, less controllable flame.
- Getting it to lightSpirits much below about 40% will not ignite reliably, and cold spirit is reluctant even at that strength. A modern pressed sugar cube may soak up less spirit than a lump chipped from a Victorian sugar loaf, so let the cube sit in the spirit a moment before lighting.
- Fire, plainlyThe flame is nearly invisible in daylight. Light it away from bottles, sleeves and napkins, never pour more spirit onto a lit saucer, and keep a plate or lid nearby to smother it. The saucer stays hot after the flame dies.
- What the burning doesIt drives off some alcohol and caramelises the sugar into the spirit, which is why the result tastes rounder and sweeter. It does not make the drink weak — most of the alcohol remains.
- ServingOne saucer per person, drunk warm at the end of dinner. As written it makes a single serving.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), written anonymously by the journalist E. S. Dallas for the London restaurateur Auguste Kettner, is arranged as a dictionary, and short entries like this one are as much table talk as instruction. Kirschwasser is reported to have been distilled in the Black Forest and neighbouring Switzerland and Alsace since at least the seventeenth century, traditionally from whole small black cherries crushed with their stones, which is generally credited with the faint bitter-almond note in the finished spirit; unlike maraschino it is characteristically unsweetened and not wood-aged, which may lie behind Dallas's remark about its simpler flavour. The flaming sugar lump belongs to a wider nineteenth-century fashion for setting spirits alight at the table — the same impulse behind burnt brandy, snapdragon and the flaming punch bowl — where a blue flame in a darkened dining room was half the entertainment.