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Solution of Liquorice Root
mans. Take five pounds St. John's Bread, and five pounds Malaga raisins, boil them together for five minutes; when cold, filter. Use for eighty gallons brandy. (See "Recipe No. 5.") St. John's bread is also known by the name of Siliqua Dulcis, and can only be procured at the best wholesale drug houses. (See Appendix.) Spirit of Orris Root.
Orris is a native of Italy, and other parts of the south of Europe, where it is also cultivated. The root is dug up in the spring, and prepared for market by the removal of its skin and fibres. Orris has an agreeable odor, resembling that of the violet and raspberry, and a bitterish, acrid taste. It is much esteemed as a flavor for brandy, and is a deservedly popular wine boquet in France and Hungary. The spirit of orris root is thus prepared :-Digest 8 oz. powdered orris root for 20 days in 1 gal. spirit 95°; filter and use in the proportions required (see "Recipes" 5 and 6), or pour over the powder sufficient boiling water and, when cool, filter. Orris root is sometimes combined with acetic ether to flavor fine gin.
Solution of Liquorice Root.
The liquorice plant is a native of the south of Europe, Barbary, Syria and Persia, and is cultivated in England, the north of France, and Germany. Much of the root imported into this country comes from Messina and Palermo, in Sicily. It is also largely produced in the north of Spain, where it is an important article of commerce. A solution of liquorice root is sometimes used as a flavor for brandy, and is prepared in the following manner :- Boil 1/2 lb. of the root in 1 gall. water, and filter when
This is a compounder's flavouring extract rather than a dish: a water decoction of liquorice root meant to be dosed into neutral or young spirit. The quantities are trade-scale and the vocabulary is that of a nineteenth-century rectifying house.
- The root quantity is missingThe instruction reads "Boil lb. of the root in 1 gall. water" with no number or fraction before the pound. The amount is unrecoverable from the page and should not be guessed at.
- What the root isDried Glycyrrhiza glabra root, sold shredded, chipped or as sticks. It is not interchangeable with black liquorice confection, much of which is flavoured wholly or partly with anise. Sicilian and Spanish root, both named in the text, were long-recognised commercial grades.
- "Filter" means what it saysA period compounder filtered through felt, flannel or a bag of purified cotton to get a bright liquid that would not cloud a spirit. A coffee filter or fine paper does the same job; a sieve will not, and any fine sediment will drop out later in the bottle.
- Water extract, not alcohol extractGlycyrrhizin is water-soluble, and this preparation is a boiled decoction rather than a spirit digestion (though the orris entry in the same section also allows a boiling-water extraction). A water decoction with no alcohol in it will spoil or mould readily; refrigerate and use promptly.
- Liquorice is not neutral in quantityGlycyrrhizin raises blood pressure and depletes potassium at sustained intakes; this is why it carries warnings in confectionery and in herbal teas. A flavouring dose in a compounded spirit is small, but the concentrated decoction itself is not a drink.
- ScaleThe neighbouring St. John's Bread formula in this section is written for an eighty-gallon lot of brandy. One gallon of decoction is a working stock for a rectifier, not a household quantity; divide down before making anything.
This entry belongs to the trade of the compounder or rectifier, who bought plain grain or grape spirit and dressed it up to pass as aged brandy, whiskey or gin. Liquorice contributed sweetness without sugar, body on the palate, and a brownish colour that suggested cask time the spirit had never had; it did the same work in cheap porter and in chewing tobacco during the same decades. The geography in the entry is accurate to its moment: Sicilian liquorice shipped out of Messina and Palermo, and Spanish root from the northern provinces, dominated the nineteenth-century import trade. Books of this kind circulated widely in America before the pure food legislation of the early twentieth century forced a distinction between what a spirit was and what a label claimed it to be, and they are now read mainly as evidence of how much of the drink trade was chemistry rather than cellarage.