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Concentrated Lemonade
1240. Take one drachm of essence of lemon, one ounce and a half of citric acid, two and a half pounds of loaf sugar, and one pint of water. To make the syrup, put the sugar into the water when cold, and let it boil gradually, then pour it hot on the acids. To make the beverage, put a table-spoonful of the lemonade into a tumbler of water. ORANGEADE. 1241. Squeeze the juice from a dozen of fruit, pour boiling water on the peel of four, and cover close. Boil water and sugar to a thin syrup, and skim it. When all are cold, mix the juice, the infusion, and the syrup, with as much more water as will make a rich sherbet; strain through a jelly-bag, and cool.
A shelf-stable lemon syrup built on citric acid and lemon oil rather than juice, diluted a spoonful at a time. The quantities are apothecaries' and imperial, so they need translating before anything goes in the pan.
- A drachm of essence of lemonThe book does not say whether this is a fluid drachm (about 3.5 ml imperial, roughly two-thirds of a teaspoon) or an apothecaries' drachm by weight (about 3.9 g). "Essence of lemon" was lemon peel oil, generally cut with spirit; buy food-grade lemon oil or a strong lemon extract and treat it as potent — it carries the entire aroma of the batch.
- Citric acidOne and a half ounces is about 42 g. It is sold today for brewing, preserving and cheesemaking, and is the same substance the Victorians used. This is what gives the drink its sourness, since there is no juice at all in the formula.
- Loaf sugarTwo and a half pounds, about 1.1 kg, of what was then hard refined sugar cut from a cone. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent; it dissolves faster, so watch that the syrup does not catch.
- The pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, about 570 ml — a fifth more than a US pint. With this much sugar to that little water the syrup is close to saturation and will crystallise if boiled down too far. Bring it up gradually as instructed and stop as soon as it is clear.
- Adding the acid off the heatThe acid and the oil go into the hot syrup, not into the pan over the flame. The book gives no reason, but boiling the essence with the syrup would drive off the volatile lemon oil, which is the whole point of the preparation.
- Yield and dilutionSomewhat over a litre of syrup. A tablespoon in a tumbler of water gives a modest, quite sharp drink; you may prefer closer to two tablespoons in 250 ml, and it works equally well with sparkling water.
- KeepingThe high sugar and low pH make this reasonably stable, but a nineteenth-century larder is not a modern kitchen. Bottle it hot into clean bottles and refrigerate once opened.