Lemon Syrup
INGREDIENTS.-2 lbs. of loaf sugar, 2 pints of water, 1 oz. of AVERAGE COST, 9d. citric acid, 1/2 drachm of essence of lemon. INGREDIENTS.—2 lbs. of loaf sugar, 2 pints of water, 1 oz. of citric acid, 1/2 drachm of essence of lemon. AVERAGE COST, 9d.
Boil the sugar and water together for 1/4 remain till cold. Beat the citric acid to a hour and put it into a basin, where let it powder, mix the essence of lemon with it, then add these two ingredients to the tablespoonfuls of the syrup are sufficient syrup ; mix well and bottle for use. Two for a tumbler of cold water and will be found a very refreshing summer drink.
A sugar syrup flavoured with citric acid and lemon oil rather than juice — the Victorian answer to bottled cordial. It comes together in twenty minutes, and the only real skill is getting the flavouring in after the syrup has cooled.
- Add the flavouring coldThe essence of lemon is a volatile oil; stirred into boiling syrup it will largely evaporate and the drink tastes flat. Let the syrup come fully to room temperature before mixing in the acid and essence, as the original directs.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a solid cone and broken up for use. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the equivalent; 2 lb is about 4 1/2 cups.
- Citric acidSold today as a powder in the baking or preserving aisle, or as "sour salt". One ounce is about 2 level tablespoons. It supplies the sharpness that lemon juice would, and also helps the syrup keep.
- Essence of lemonThis means lemon oil or extract, not juice. A drachm is 1/8 fluid ounce, roughly 3/4 teaspoon; the quantity printed here is unclear, so start with about half a teaspoon of good lemon extract, taste, and add more. Finely grated zest steeped in the warm syrup and strained out is a better-flavoured substitute.
- The boilA quarter of an hour at a steady boil reduces 2 pints of water to a syrup of moderate thickness. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then leave it alone; scraping crystals back in encourages the whole pan to grain.
- Yield and storageYou will finish with roughly 2 pints of syrup. Bottle it in clean, dry glass and keep it in the refrigerator, where it will hold for a couple of months; at room temperature a sugar syrup this dilute can grow mould at the surface.
- ServingTwo tablespoons to a tumbler of cold water, as given, makes a lightly sweet drink. It is also good with soda water, or over ice with a sprig of mint.
Homemade fruit syrups were a fixture of the nineteenth-century store cupboard, when fresh lemons were seasonal and expensive. Citric acid, isolated from lemon juice by Scheele in the 1780s and manufactured on a commercial scale from Italian citrus during the nineteenth century, let a household reproduce the sourness of lemon at any time of year, while "essence of lemon" — oil expressed from the peel — supplied the aroma. The book gives the average cost of the batch as ninepence. Syrups like this were diluted with cold water as a summer drink, and lemonade of this kind was also a common sickroom drink for feverish patients.