Lemon Syrup
Take the juice of twelve lemons, grate the rind of six in it, let it stand over night, then take six pounds of white sugar, and make a thick syrup. When it is quite cool, strain the juice into it, and squeeze as much oil from the grated rind as will suit the taste. A table-spoonful in a goblet of water will make a delicious drink on a hot day, far superior to that prepared from the stuff commonly sold as lemon syrup. - Miss Abbie G. Backus.
A concentrated lemonade base, scaled for a household that expected to drink it all summer. The proportions are generous but the method leaves two things unstated: how much water goes into the syrup, and how long the finished bottle keeps.
- The missing water"Make a thick syrup" assumes you know the ratio. A heavy syrup is roughly two parts sugar to one part water by weight, boiled until thick -- somewhere around 220 to 230F on a thermometer. For six pounds of sugar that means about three pounds of water, roughly six cups; more will simply need longer boiling.
- What twelve lemons give youExpect 2 to 2 1/2 cups of juice from a dozen average supermarket lemons, and roughly a third to a half cup of loosely packed zest from six. Six pounds of sugar is roughly 13 1/2 cups, so this makes a large batch, on the order of three quarts or more of finished syrup.
- The overnight steepJuice and grated rind sitting together overnight is a cold infusion that pulls the aromatic oil out of the zest, which boiling would drive off. Cover it and refrigerate rather than leaving it on the counter.
- Cool before combiningThe instruction to add the juice only when the syrup is "quite cool" is the hinge of the recipe. Fresh lemon juice poured into hot syrup loses its brightness and turns faintly cooked; the whole point of the overnight infusion is undone.
- Squeezing the rindWrap the strained zest in a square of muslin and twist it hard over the syrup. What comes out is juice carrying the peel oil, and it is potent and slightly bitter, so add it in stages and taste.
- Strength in the glassA tablespoon in a full goblet is thin by modern palates. Start at two tablespoons in 8 oz of cold or sparkling water and adjust.
- Keeping itThe sugar concentration is high enough to resist spoilage, but not indefinitely in a warm kitchen. Bottle it in clean jars, refrigerate, and use within a month or two; it also freezes well in small containers.
Lemon syrup was the domestic answer to the soda fountain. By the 1880s, when The Dixie Cook Book was assembled from contributed household recipes, bottled lemon syrup was sold everywhere, and some of it was said to contain little lemon at all: tartaric or citric acid for the sourness, sugar or glucose for body, and a synthetic or heavily diluted oil for the smell. Miss Backus's parting shot at "the stuff commonly sold as lemon syrup" is a small piece of period consumer opinion, and it was well founded. Food adulteration went essentially unregulated at the federal level in the United States until the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, though a number of states had food laws before then, and flavoring syrups were reportedly among the goods liable to be doctored. Making a summer's supply at home from real fruit, in the weeks when lemons were cheap, was both a matter of taste and a matter of knowing what was in the bottle.