The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer

The liquor trade's own 1868 handbook — stills, cordials, imitation brandies and how wines were doctored, preserved as printed.

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How to Make Syrup for Cordials

dered perfectly fine by filtering or fining. Some spirits, as anise seed, etc., frequently require this treatment, which is best performed by running them through a fine and clean filter, having previously mixed them with a spoonful or two of magnesia. By good management, cordials thus made will be perfectly "clear" and transparent; but should not this be the case, they may be fined witli the white of about 12 or 20 eggs to the hogshead, or by adding a little alum, either alone, or followed by a little carbonate of soda or potassa, both dissolved in water. In a week or fortnight the liquor will be clear. For many excellent hints on the manufacture of cordials we refer our readers to the article headed "Infusion, Maceration and Digestion." (See also Appendix.) To Clarify Loaf-Sugar and make Syrup for Cordials.

Take a copper boiler or pan, and put into it your sugar, broken in small pieces. The pan should be sufficiently large to allow the scum to rise a little without boiling over. One pint of water to every two pounds of sugar may be added, this proportion will make a fine syrup, about 32 degrees, Baumé, but the manufacturer often requires weaker syrups when preparing inferior cordials, and the easiest method of ascertaining the proper point of concentration is by the use of that variety of Baumé's hydrometer, called a saccharometer. (This instrument is mentioned under the head of "The Hydrometer.") Beat up the whites of two eggs (if you are clarifying about ten pounds of sugar, or mix in this proportion), until it is very frothy, and then mix in with the rest. Now place the boiler on the fire, and have ready some cold water. When the mixture begins to

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