Rum Flavored with Vanilla; Spirit of Strawberries, Raspberries and Apricots

Rum flavored with Vanilla.—Put twelve vanilla beans cut in pieces in a quart bottle with a quarter of a pint of boiling water, twelve hours later fill up the bottle with good rum and leave it for ten days; it will then be ready for use.

Spirit of Strawberries, etc.—Crush thirty pounds of strawberries or raspberries; to this pulp add three quarts of spirits of wine, put into an earthen crock, cover and leave to infuse for fifteen days. Distill the fruits in an alembic in a bain-marie and continue the distillation until the liquor reaches twenty degrees. Spirit of apricots is made the same way only taking twenty pounds of fruit instead of thirty for each three quarts of spirit. The fruits are pressed through a sieve and the kernels broken and crushed in a mortar, then mixed in with the apricots.