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Hot Lime and Ginger
Mix one tablespoonful of lime juice with two tablespoonfuls of ginger syrup, and add hot water to fill glass.
A two-ingredient hot toddy without the liquor. The only real variable is the ginger syrup, which the book assumes you have standing by.
- Ginger syrupFresh ginger simmered with sugar and water and strained; the book assumes it is on hand, though how widely it was actually kept is not something the recipe tells us. Commercial ginger syrups sold today for coffee and cocktails tend to run sweeter and thinner, so taste before committing to two tablespoons.
- ProportionsOne part lime juice to two parts syrup is sharp but workable; the book does not specify a glass, but in a 6 to 8 oz tumbler the three tablespoons of juice and syrup would leave roughly 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 oz of hot water. Scale the syrup up if your glass is larger.
- Lime juiceFresh-squeezed, not bottled. Bottled lime juice carries a cooked note that hot water amplifies.
- Water temperatureJust off the boil rather than boiling. Rolling-hot water flattens the volatile citrus oils that make the drink smell like anything.
- The glassA thin pressed-glass tumbler will crack under near-boiling water. Use a heatproof glass or a mug, or warm the glass with tepid water first.
- YieldOne serving. Multiplying is straightforward, but mix the juice and syrup first and divide that before adding water, or the last glass ends up all syrup.
Books of this kind appeared in quantity in the United States between the temperance campaigns of the 1890s and the arrival of national Prohibition in 1920, when hostesses suddenly needed something to hand guests. Their strategy, as far as one can tell from recipes this brief, was rarely invention: they seem to have taken the shape of a familiar bar drink and swapped the spirit out. This is a hot toddy with the whisky removed and ginger syrup carrying the burn instead, and it works because ginger genuinely does produce a warming sensation on the palate. Hot ginger drinks had a long domestic life besides as a remedy for chills and sore throats, which gave a non-alcoholic version a respectability the cocktail imitations lacked.