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Cordials by Distillation
The following recipes are strongly recommended to those of our readers who contemplate the manufacture of cordials by distillation, as being among the best that have ever been published on the subject. Others will also be found in the Appendix.
Absinthe. (SWISS.) Charge of the Still. 15 lbs. absinthe (large), 19 “ " “ (small), 25 “ long fennel, 25 " 3 66 2 10 66 25 green anise seed, star anise (break the stars only), coriander seed, hyssop, in pieces.
Put the ingredients into a cask, and pour upon them 100 gallons alcohol, 95 per cent. Digest for 15 days, and stir daily. Then distill, adding 10 gallons of water during the distillation. In managing the still, the fire should be proportioned to the ponderosity of the oil or flavoring, and the receiver should be changed before the faints come over, as the latter are unfit to be mixed with the cordial. If the distillation is carefully performed, this will produce a very good absinthe. You will easily know when the faints are coming off. This is shown by the spirit, as it comes from the worm, assuming a reddish color. The faints may be distilled apart, in a water. bath, which will give as good a spirit as the first. Coloring. 5 lbs. mint leaves, 2 66 melissa leaves, 3 66 hyssop, 551 “ absinthe (small), 66 1½ " citron peel. 1½ 66 bruised liquorice root, Put the above in the absinthe, and let it steep for 15 or 20 days, according to the depth of color you desire. Reduce to 70 per cent, Tralle's, and put the liquor into another cask, and let it rest.
Absinthe. (SWISS.) Charge of the Still. 15 lbs. great absinthe, long fennel, green anise seed, 12 " small absinthe, 20 66 30 66 4 66 15 “ 2 “ coriander seed, hyssop, in pieces, calamus, 2 oz. essence of absinthe, 120 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent. 8 lbs. melissa, Coloring. 2 66 hyssop, 66 2 small absinthe, liquorice root.
Treat as before. When the absinthe is of too high a color, add a little vinegar before filtering.
Curaçao. (Superfine.) Charge of the Still. 35 lbs. green orange peel, or 50 lbs. yellow, 25 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent, Add 4 gals. water, making in all 29 gals., at 90 per cent. Digest for 10 days, and stir daily.
OBSERVATIONS.-1. Distill very carefully. 2. When you have drawn off 20 gals., add 10 gals. water, to draw off the faints, which may be distilled again in the next distillation. 3. To make superfine Curaçao, distill over again in a water-bath, adding 5 gals. water. 4. To know when the faints are coming off, take a little in a glass as it flows, and add 3/4 water, as if for absinthe. When it no longer turns milky, the faints are coming off; reserve them for the next distillation.
Mixing.
Reduce the Curaçao to 82 per cent, Tralle's, which will give - - Add spirit, 82 per cent, Coloring (as given below), Syrup, 31 degrees, Baumé, 26 gals. 12 66 7 " - 90 “ - 135 66 Total, Coloring. 3½ lbs. Brazil wood, 1월 “ “ Campeachy wood, 14 yellow wood, 7 gals. alcohol, 90 per cent.
Mix the above and heat in a water-bath, putting on the head. When the head begins to get hot, rake out the fire and let the whole cool together in the bath. 1
This is a commercial distiller's working formula, written for a copper pot still, a cask room and a licence. It cannot be carried out in a domestic kitchen, and the reasons are specific rather than general.
- Distilling spirits at home is illegal in most placesIn the United States, operating a still to produce beverage alcohol without a federal permit is a criminal offence regardless of quantity, and comparable licensing rules apply across the UK, Canada, Australia and most of the EU. Nothing on this page is a loophole: redistilling purchased alcohol is still distilling.
- The scale is industrialThe first charge alone is 100 gallons of 95 per cent alcohol standing over a cask of herbs for fifteen days, then heated. That is several hundred pounds of near-neat ethanol vapour in play, at a flash point well below room temperature. A leaking joint or an open flame produces a vapour fire that cannot be smothered with a lid.
- "Proportion the fire to the ponderosity of the oil"The book assumes a direct-fired still tended by someone who has run hundreds of charges. Direct flame under a vessel of high-proof alcohol is among the most dangerous arrangements in the trade; the later instructions do specify a water-bath for the refining runs.
- Cuts made by eyeThe distiller is told to watch for the spirit turning reddish, or to test the louche by adding water to a sample, and to change the receiver at that moment. These are real workshop tests, but they are judgement calls with no instrument behind them, and a misjudged cut carries congeners and fusel oils into the finished cordial.
- The dyewoods are not food colouringBrazil wood, Campeachy (logwood) and "yellow wood" (probably fustic) are textile dyestuffs. Logwood extract in particular is no longer permitted as a food or beverage colour in the US or EU. They appear here because in this period a dyer's shelf and a liqueurist's shelf overlapped.
- Wormwood and thujone"Great" and "small" absinthe are Artemisia absinthium and Artemisia pontica. Thujone content in a finished spirit is capped by law in most markets, and there is no way to know from a recipe like this where a given batch would land.
- Reading the unitsTralles is a percentage-by-volume alcohol scale, so 70 per cent Tralles is 140 US proof. Baume 31 syrup is a heavy sugar syrup, roughly 60 per cent sugar by weight. "Faints" are the tail fraction of the run, kept back and recharged into the next batch.
- If you want to drink absinthe or curacaoBuy it, or infuse a purchased neutral spirit without heat. A modern licensed recipe should be used for anything involving a still.
Manuals of this kind belonged to a nineteenth-century trade that sat between the pharmacy and the wine merchant: the liquorist, who bought neutral spirit by the barrel and turned it into ratafias, cordials and imitation imports. Swiss absinthe is the flagship here for good reason. Wormwood spirit was compounded in the Val-de-Travers from the 1790s and industrialised across the border at Pontarlier over the following century. The two formulas given are recognisably in that tradition, with the wormwood-fennel-anise triad in the charge and a second steeping of melissa, hyssop and small wormwood, along with mint, citron peel and liquorice root, to draw the green colour after distillation. Curacao likewise had drifted loose from its origin in the bitter laraha oranges of the Dutch Caribbean and become a generic name for a peel liqueur made anywhere. What dates the book most sharply is not the botanicals but the coloring: Brazil wood, logwood and fustic came off the same dyers' shelf that supplied the textile mills, and their casual use in something meant for drinking belongs to the era before food adulteration law caught up.