Fruit Highball

The ingredient list was set in two newspaper-style columns and has come out interleaved; read it as apples, lemon juice, pineapple, pineapple juice, berries, ginger root, ice water, orange juice, sugar. Once untangled it is a fruit cup rather than a drink to sip through a straw.

• Reading the listThe stray word "raspberries" belongs with "1 cup blackberries or red" from the line above. Nine items in total: 1 cup each diced apple, diced pineapple, berries, orange juice, lemon juice and pineapple juice, plus a small piece of ginger root, 1 pint ice water and sugar to taste.
• The lemon juiceA full cup of lemon juice against one cup of orange and one of pineapple is aggressively sour by modern taste, and the recipe leaves sweetening open rather than giving a quantity. Start with half that lemon, then add more; expect to need at least 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar for the full batch.
• Dissolving the sugarGranulated sugar will sit at the bottom of ice water. Make a simple syrup with equal parts sugar and hot water, cool it, and add that instead, or stir the sugar into the citrus juice before the ice water goes in.
• The ginger rootA "small piece" is around a 1-inch knob. Sliced thin or bruised, it can steep in the mixture for 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator and then be lifted out; left in overnight it will dominate everything else.
• Pineapple juiceWhere canned juice was not to hand, this would have been the juice pressed or drained from the fresh fruit, thinner and sharper than modern canned. Canned or bottled juice is often sweeter, which is a reason to hold back on the sugar.
• ApplesDiced apple browns within minutes. Dice it last and turn it in a little of the measured lemon juice, then combine.
• Yield and servingAbout 2 quarts, or six to eight glasses. There is enough solid fruit that it wants a wide glass or a punch cup and a spoon; chill the liquid separately and add the fruit and fresh ice at the table so nothing goes mushy.