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To Make Holland Gin
The tincture of orange peel is made as follows:
Steep 1 pound of orange peel in 1 gallon 95 per cent. alcohol for 15 days; filter.
This is a fine gin, and only requires age to make it a perfect imitation of the genuine article.
To make Holland Gin.
RECIPE No. 4.
To 80 gallons pure proof spirit, add : 3/4 oz. pure oil juniper, 1 66 4 oil of caraway, 18 1 66 8 oil of sweet fennel, 3 66 ground cardamoms (infused same as spirit orris, see "Brandy Flavor"), 1 drachm essential oil of almonds, essence of lemon peel. 4 66 Be careful and cut all the oils in alcohol 95° before using them. (See "Recipe No. 1.") Filter with brandy filter.
To make Holland Gin.
RECIPE No. 5. 40 gallons French spirit, 4 oz. essence of juniper oil, 66 66 "sweet fennel oil, lb. orange peel, infused in 1 gall. French spirit, 10 o. P., for ten days, stir the infusion twice every day, 1 quart of sugar syrup.
The above recipe will make a fine gin, being entirely free from all the deleterious drugs sometimes employed by ignorant dealers. (See next Recipe.)
This is a rectifier's formula from the era when "gin" was often not distilled at all but compounded — essential oils cut into high-proof alcohol and filtered bright. It cannot be followed today, and the notes below explain the specific reasons rather than offering substitutions.
- Essential oil of almondsThe drachm of "essential oil of almonds" called for in Recipe No. 4 means bitter almond oil, which in its natural, unrectified state carries hydrocyanic acid (cyanide). It was a routine flavouring in nineteenth-century compounding and is a recognised poison; unrectified bitter almond oil is not permitted as a flavouring today. That is reason enough not to follow the formula.
- The quantities are not recoverableThe transcription carries "* oz", "1 66 4", "18 1 66 8" and "4 66" where the original had fractions and ditto marks. Nobody can reconstruct the intended weights of juniper, caraway and fennel oil from this text, and essential oils are potent enough that guessing is not a neutral act — juniper and fennel oils are toxic in quantity.
- "Proof spirit" and "o. P."Proof spirit in the British system of the period is about 57 per cent alcohol by volume; American proof spirit is 50 per cent. "10 o. P." means ten per cent over proof. "Alcohol 95°" is 95 per cent neutral spirit.
- ScaleRecipe No. 4 is an 80-gallon batch and No. 5 a 40-gallon batch. These are commercial rectifying quantities, written for a licensed house with filtering equipment, not for a kitchen.
- A drachmFor reading the text only: a fluid drachm is one-eighth of a fluid ounce, roughly 3.5 ml; the apothecaries' drachm by weight is one-eighth of an apothecaries' ounce, about 3.9 g. Which is meant here is not stated.
- Compounding spirits is regulatedProducing flavoured spirits for consumption, even without a still, sits under alcohol production law in most jurisdictions. If you want genever, buy it; a current, tested recipe should be used for any home infusion.
- "Free from all deleterious drugs"The author's boast in Recipe No. 5 is worth reading as period evidence rather than reassurance. The formula immediately above it contains bitter almond oil, which tells you where the trade drew its line.
"Holland gin" meant genever, the Dutch malt-wine spirit flavoured with juniper that reached England in quantity in the seventeenth century and gave the English word gin. Genuine genever is distilled from a mash of malted grain and redistilled with botanicals, which leaves it heavier and maltier than the London style; imitating it from neutral spirit and bought essential oils was the rectifier's trade, and manuals like this one existed to serve dealers who bottled under their own labels. The casual appearance of orris root, cardamom and bitter almond oil alongside juniper shows how little separated a flavouring house from a chemist's shop before food adulteration law caught up. The author's aside about "deleterious drugs sometimes employed by ignorant dealers" reads as a swipe at competitors who stretched cheap spirit, though what exactly he had in mind is not spelled out.