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Ginger Cordial
To one pound of picked currants, red or black, add one quart of whiskey, one ounce of bruised ginger; put in a stone jar and let it stand for twenty-four or thirty-six hours; strain through a flannell bag, and add half a pound of sugar; when it is all melted, bottle.
A cold infusion rather than anything cooked: fruit, spirit and spice steeped for a day, strained, sweetened, bottled. The only real skill is in the straining and in judging the steep.
- The currantsOne pound of fresh red or black currants, stems picked off. Frozen currants work and in fact release their juice more readily as they thaw. Do not use dried Zante currants, which are raisins and will give a wholly different, raisin-sweet drink.
- Bruised gingerAn ounce of root ginger, crushed with the flat of a knife or a rolling pin to split the fibres and open the surface. 'Bruised' implies whole root rather than ground; ground ginger will cloud the cordial and is difficult to filter out.
- A quart of whiskeyRoughly a litre; note that a US quart is 32 fl oz (about 950 ml) while an imperial quart, which a Canadian book of 1877 may well intend, is about 1,140 ml. Canadian whiskey of the period was commonly rye-flavoured and often sold young; a plain rye or a mild blended whisky suits this better than a heavily charred-barrel bourbon, which will fight the fruit.
- The stone jarA glazed stoneware crock, the standard steeping vessel of the day, and conveniently inert and lightproof. A large glass jar with a tight lid does the same job. Avoid bare metal, which reacts with the fruit acid.
- Twenty-four to thirty-six hoursThat is a short maceration by modern standards and gives a light, fresh cordial. Taste at twenty-four hours; if the ginger has not come forward, give it the further twelve.
- StrainingFlannel was the fine-filter cloth of the period. Two or three layers of damp muslin or a jelly bag do the same. Let it drip rather than squeezing, or you will push pulp through and end up with a permanently hazy bottle.
- The sugarHalf a pound, roughly one cup plus two tablespoons of granulated. Stir the strained liquid cold until it dissolves fully, which can take a while; the recipe's 'when it is all melted' expects cold dissolution, and heating risks losing some alcohol.
- Yield and keepingA quart or a little more of finished cordial, once the dissolved sugar and fruit juice are allowed for against what the fruit and cloth absorb. The alcohol and sugar content mean it will keep for years in a sealed bottle. Serve in small glasses, or over ice with soda water.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in 1877 by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada," with proceeds going to the Hospital for Sick Children, and it is generally credited as the first Canadian fundraising cookbook of its kind. Cordials like this one sat in a grey area between the drinks cupboard and the medicine shelf: ginger was the standard domestic warming remedy for chills and unsettled stomachs, and steeping it in spirit was the simplest way to keep its virtue through a winter. Currants were a natural partner, cropping heavily in a short July window. Note too that the recipe assumes a whiskey quart on hand without comment; distilling was a major Canadian industry by the 1870s, and rye whiskey was the cheap, ubiquitous spirit a household would reach for.