Cider Cup
INGREDIENTS for cup for 4 persons.-1 quart bottle of cider, 1 bottle of Harstin's seltzer, 1/21 a glass of brandy or liqueur, 1 lemon, 2 tablespoonfuls of pounded sugar, borage, or a few slices of cucumber. AVERAGE COST, 2s. Put the sugar in a jug with the lemon rind and half the juice, pour over the brandy, and set on ice. When the cup is sufficiently flavoured with the lemon peel, take it out and add the seltzer; then pour all into a glass jug in which have been placed a few sprigs of borage.
SEASONABLE in summer.
Claret Cup. INGREDIENTS for sufficient for 4 persons.-1 bottle of claret, 1 bottle of soda-water, about 1/2 lb. of pounded ice, 4 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, 1 liqueurglass of Maraschino, a sprig of green borage.
AVERAGE COST. 3s.
CLARET CUP.
Put all the ingredients into a silver cup, regulating the proportion of ice by the state of the weather; if very warm, a larger quantity would be necessary, CLARIFIED SUGAR.
A Victorian summer cup: cider lengthened with sparkling water, sharpened with lemon and a measure of spirit, and scented with borage. The whole point is that it goes together cold and is drunk at once.
- Steep first, fizz lastThe sugar, lemon rind, juice and brandy sit together on ice until the peel has given up its oils, and the seltzer goes in only after the peel is taken out. The text as printed does not actually say at what point the cider is added. Adding the sparkling elements early flattens the drink before it reaches the table.
- What the cider should beAn English cider of the period meant a dry, still or lightly sparkling fermented apple drink of roughly 5-7% alcohol. Modern sweet or heavily carbonated ciders will overwhelm the sugar; use a dry cider and taste before adding all the sugar.
- SeltzerBottled seltzer here is plain carbonated mineral water. Any unflavoured sparkling water or soda water works; club soda adds a faint saltiness that suits a dry cider.
- The spirit measureThe quantity of brandy is not legible as a single figure in the original, and the recipe specifies only 'a glass'. A wineglassful in Victorian cookery is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half a glass would be roughly 1 fl oz -- a modest measure for a quart of cider, and a sensible starting point.
- Pounded sugarPounded or powdered sugar is caster sugar, not modern icing sugar, which contains cornflour and will cloud the cup. Two tablespoons is about 25 g.
- BorageBorage flowers and young leaves taste faintly of cucumber, which is why the recipe offers cucumber slices as the substitute. Use the blue flowers if you can get them; they are the traditional garnish for a cup and float attractively.
- IceIce is meant to chill the jug and the ingredients, not to fill the glass. Chill the cider and seltzer beforehand so the cup is not diluted while it stands.
- YieldStated as four persons: a quart of cider plus a bottle of seltzer comes to something over 1.5 litres, so roughly four generous tumblers or six smaller glasses.
Cups -- claret cup, cider cup, champagne cup -- were the standard warm-weather drink of the Victorian and Edwardian household, served from a jug or a covered silver cup at picnics, cricket matches, garden parties and after tennis. They exist because bottled aerated water became cheap and widely available in Britain during the nineteenth century, which made it possible to stretch a bottle of wine or cider into a long, cold drink for a table of guests. The borage garnish is older than the cups themselves: the herb has been associated with wine drinks since at least the sixteenth century, and John Gerard's herbal repeats the traditional claim that borage in wine drives away sorrow. Mrs Beeton's editors gave average costs for every recipe, and the two shillings quoted here is a reminder that these were pages read as much for household budgeting as for pleasure.