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Ials Without Distillation
Maraschino. (135 gallons, superfine.) 4 oz. essence of noyau, 1 “ " 66 rose, “ " 66 2 neroly, 4 drachms of mace, infused in alcohol, 95 per cent, + lb. cinnamon, 2 oz. cloves, " 66 1 quart of water, “ 66 1 pint 66 2 lbs. orris root (powdered), infused in 2 gals. alcohol 95°, for 15 days.
Dissolve the essences in 2 gals. alcohol 95°. Mix.
Put into a barrel, 41 gals. alcohol 85°, Add the aromas, 4 " 95°, 4 66 95°, Sugar syrup, 90 " 32°, Baumé's saccharometer. 135 gals.
Stir all the ingredients well together for at least half an hour, and let the mixture stand two weeks; then filter and put in the filter two or three sheets of filtering paper. (See "Filter Bags for Cordials.") Maraschino. (40 gallons.) 14 oz. essence of maraschino, 1½ drachms essence of rose, 1-2 1/2 " " 66 noyau, 8 drops " 66 5 66 " 66 cinnamon, cloves, 1/2 lb. orris root (powdered), infused in 1/2 gal. alcohol 95°, for 15 days.
Dissolve the essences in 1 gal. alcohol, 95 per cent. Mix. Put in a barrel 12 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent, and add : Perfumed alcohol, 2 gals, 95 per cent (as described above), Sugar syrup, 26 gals. 30 degrees, Baumé's saccharometer. Mix and filter as directed in the last recipe.
Maraschino. (135 gallons.) 3½ oz. essence of noyau, 6 drachms essence of rose.
Dissolve the above in 1/2 gal. alcohol, 95 per cent, and add: 4 spoonfuls of magnesia, 1 gal. orange flower water, 1/2 lb. cinnamon (bruised), infused in 1/2 gal. water, ま 66 cloves " " 66 " 1/4 " 66 " 4 drachms mace, infused in alcohol, 2 lbs. orris root (powdered), infused in 2 gals. alco hol, 95 per cent, for 15 days. 41 gals. alcohol, 80 per cent, " 90 syrup, 25 degrees, Baumé, and add: 4 “ 135 gals. perfumed spirits, as described above.
Stir and filter as already directed.
Curaçao d'Hollande. (20 gallons.) 2 lbs. of Curaçoa orange peel, 专 “ 1/2 " Ceylon cinnamon.
Let them soak in water; boil them for 5 minutes with the juice of 32 oranges and 14 gallons of white plain syrup; then add 6 gallons of alcohol, 95 per cent; strain, filter; color dark yellow with sugar coloring. (See page 59.) This recipe will make a splendid curaçao.
Curaçao. (40 gallons.) 2 oz. essence of bitter oranges, 2 66 66 66 neroly, + “ 66 66 cinnamon, 3 drachms mace, infused in alcohol.
Dissolve the above essences in one gal. alcohol, 95 per cent, then put in a clean barrel. 13 gals. alcohol, 85 per cent, 26 sugar syrup, 30 degrees, Baumé, and add : 66 1 66 -- 40 gals. perfumed spirit, as above.
Color with saffron or turmeric. (See "Coloring for Wines.") Champion Anisette. (135 gallons.) Put into a barrel 30 gals. alcohol, 85 per cent. Add: 4 oz. essence of star anise, which dissolve in 2 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent. Add: 103 gals. sugar syrup, 10 degrees, Baumé.
Stir 15 minutes and let it rest 4 or 5 days, then filter. Add 2 or 3 sheets of filtering paper. (See "Filtering Bags for Cordials.") Anisette. (40 gallons.) Put in a barrel 13 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent. Dissolve 3½ oz. essence of green anise seed in 1 gal. alcohol, 95 per cent, and add: 1/2 gal. orange flower water, 8 or 10 drops infusion of mace, and 5 drops essence of cinnamon. Then put in the barrel 26 gals. sugar syrup, 25 degrees, Baumé. Stir and filter as directed in the last recipe.
Anise Seed Cordial. (10 gallons.) 3 drachms of oil of anise seed, dissolved in 24 gals. of alcohol, 95 per cent; then add 2½ gals. of fine white syrup, mixed with 4 gals. of water. Stir and filter. Malliorca d'Espagne. 40 gals. alcohol, 55 per cent, 5 oz. essence green anise seed, ) Dissolved in alcohol. 5" “ star “ } 95 per cent, 1/2 drachm ether (to give the cordial age).
Stir and filter.
Blackberry Brandy. 10 gals. blackberry juice, 25 alcohol, 65 per cent, 66 8 66 water, 20 lbs. white sugar, 1/8 oz. oil cloves, “ “ cinnamon.
Dissolve the oils separately in 1/2 pint alcohol, 95 per cent; mix both together, and use one half the quantity; if the cordial is not sufficiently flavored, use the balance. 1 Blackberry Brandy. 1/4 oz. of cinnamon, 4 1/4 " cloves, 1/4 " 66 18 66 mace, cardamom.
Ground to a coarse powder; add to 16 lbs. of black berries, mashed, and 5 gallons of alcohol, 95 per cent. Macerate for two weeks; press it; then add 10 lbs. of sugar, dissolved in 30 gallons of water. Filter. 4 Cherry Brandy. 16 lbs. of black cherries, mashed with the stones, 5 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent.
Macerate for two weeks; press it; then add 10 lbs. of sugar, dissolved in 30 gallons of water. Filter. (See No. 12, Wine Recipes, page 154.) For Cherry Bounce and Guignolet, see Wine Recipes, 15 to 18.
Peach Brandy. 18 lbs. of peaches, mashed with the stones; macerate them for 24 hours with 4 gallons of alcohol, 95 per cent, and 4 gallons of water.
Strain, press, and filter; add 5 pints of white plain syrup.
Color dark yellow with burnt sugar coloring.
Imperial Peach Brandy. 4½ oz. of powdered bitter almonds, 34 gals. of alcohol, 95 per cent, 54 gals. of water.
Mix together, and macerate for 24 hours; then add a strained syrup, made of 34 lbs. of sugar, 1 pint of peach jelly, 24 oz. preserved ginger, 1 lemon, cut in slices, 1 drachm of grated nutmegs, one drachm of allspice, in powder, and 5 pints of water, boiled for two minutes. Mix the whole, and filter.
Peppermint Brandy.
To 40 gals. spirit, 5 o. p., add: 4 oz. essence of pepperment, dissolved in alcohol, 95 per cent.
Color with 1/2 lb. powder of turmeric infused in 1 gal. spirit, 95 per cent. Use this infusion in such quantity as to get the proper shade.
Kirschenwasser. 100 gals. alcohol, 5 o. p., 5 oz. essence of noyau, 2 drachms essence of rose.
Dissolve the latter ingredient in some alcohol, 95 per cent, and add a spoonful of magnesia. 2 lbs orris root (powdered), infused 15 days in 2 gals. alcohol, 95 per cent. 1½ gals. sugar syrup.
Stir, and filter if necessary.
Caraway Cordial. 6 drachms of oil of caraway dissolved in 3 gals. of alcohol, 95 per cent; add a syrup made of 12 lbs. of sugar and 44 gals. of water. Filter.
Berlin Caraway Cordial.
Take 8 gals. spirit, 50 per cent, 1 oz. oil of caraway, which you dissolve in spirit, 95 per cent, 5 lbs. sugar, 2 gals. water.
Dissolve your sugar in your water. Mix, stir, and filter. (see "Doppelt Kummel." Appendix.
Ratafia.
This word is derived from the Latin pax ratafia (let peace be ratified). The Latins used to drink ratafia on signing their treaties of peace. Ratafia may be made with the juice of any fruit.
Take 3 gals. cherry juice, 4 lbs. sugar, which you dissolve in the juice.
Steep in 2½ gals. brandy 10 days: 2 drachms cinnamon, 24 cloves, 16 oz. peach leaves, 66 8 bruised cherry kernals.
Filter; mix both liquors, and filter again.
We will here close our recipes for manufacturing cordials without distilation. Others may be found in the Appendix, pages 261 to 267.
This is a page from a nineteenth-century compounder's manual — commercial formulas for imitation liqueurs built from concentrated essences and high-proof spirit, in barrel-sized batches. Several of the formulas on it cannot be made safely at any scale, and the units and figures need translation before anything here can even be read.
- Bitter almonds make the Imperial Peach Brandy unsafeBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernels are ground and wetted. Four and a half ounces of the powder macerated in spirit and then bottled has no cooking step to drive anything off; the resulting cordial carries a cyanide load that cannot be estimated from the text. Sweet almonds are a different cultivar and are not a substitute here in any meaningful sense — the formula exists to get the bitter-almond flavour.
- Stone fruit macerated with the pitsThe cherry brandy calls for cherries "mashed with the stones" and the peach brandy for peaches mashed with theirs; the ratafia adds bruised cherry kernels (the quantity is garbled in the text) and peach leaves. All of these are cyanogenic for the same reason as the bitter almonds. Crushing the kernel is precisely what liberates the toxin, and a two-week cold maceration extracts it into the finished liquor.
- The ether in Malliorca d'EspagneThe fraction is illegible in the text, but "drachm ether (to give the cordial age)" means diethyl ether, a solvent reportedly used in the trade to imitate the mellowness of a barrel-aged spirit. It is not a food ingredient, it is an anaesthetic and a severe fire hazard around open spirit, and it has no legitimate place in a drink.
- Ninety-five per cent alcoholMost of the formulas here are built on neutral spirit at 95 per cent, the compounder's stock in trade, though several call for weaker spirit (85, 80, 65, 55 or 50 per cent) or for spirit reckoned over proof. Spirit of that strength is not a retail product in many jurisdictions today, and local law may restrict compounding beverage alcohol at home.
- Baumé degrees"Sugar syrup, 30 degrees Baumé" is a density reading from a hydrometer, not a temperature. Roughly, 30 degrees Baumé is a heavy syrup, 25 degrees a moderately heavy one and 10 degrees quite thin. The scale was widely used for syrups in the nineteenth-century liquor trade; Brix later displaced it.
- "5 o. p." and other trade shorthandO.P. is "over proof" on the old British scale, so "spirit, 5 o. p." is five per cent above proof strength, not 5 per cent alcohol. A fluid drachm is one eighth of a fluid ounce, about 3.5-3.7 ml, though where the book weighs dry spices a drachm is a unit of weight of roughly 3.9 g. "Essence of noyau" is a bitter-almond flavouring, and it appears in every maraschino formula on the page.
- Magnesia and orris rootThe spoonful of magnesia is a fining agent: magnesia (magnesium oxide or carbonate) was stirred in to carry cloudy essential-oil haze down onto the filter papers, a clarifying trick rather than a flavouring. Powdered orris root, infused fifteen days, supplied a violet-like fixative note; it is a recognised skin sensitiser and is now used mainly in perfumery, though it survives as a gin botanical.
- Read a current recipe insteadIf the object is homemade fruit cordial, use a modern published method that pits the fruit and specifies food-grade spirit and quantities. Nothing on this page should be scaled down and attempted.
"Cordials without distillation" describes an entire branch of the late nineteenth-century drinks trade: rather than distil botanicals, a compounder bought concentrated essences and neutral spirit and assembled liqueurs by arithmetic, in barrels of forty or a hundred and thirty-five gallons. The maraschino formulas here are frank imitations — real maraschino was distilled from Dalmatian marasca cherries around Zadar, and what stands in for it is essence of noyau (bitter almond) plus rose, neroli, mace, cinnamon and cloves, tinted and sweetened to a Baumé reading. The curaçao entries show the same split: one built honestly from Curaçao orange peel and the juice of thirty-two oranges, the other from essence of bitter orange and a colouring of saffron or turmeric. The book's etymology for ratafia — from a Latin phrase for ratifying a peace — is a piece of traditional lore repeated in many nineteenth-century manuals; the word is generally traced instead to the colonial Caribbean and Indian Ocean trade, and the Latin story is not documented. What the page really records is a trade in which flavour, colour and even the illusion of age were bought in bottles, at a time when almost nothing about the contents of a cordial had to be declared.