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Red Currant Cordial
Mrs. Spence.
To two quarts of red currants, put one quart of whiskey; let it stand twenty-four hours, then bruise and strain through a flannel bag. To every two quarts of this liquor, add one pound of loaf sugar, and quarter of a pound of ginger well bruised and boiled; let the whole stand to settle, then strain or filter; bottle and cork, seal the corks tightly.
N. B. It is an improvement to have half red raspberry juice if the flavour is liked. The above is fit for use in a month.
A straightforward steeped fruit cordial — no cooking beyond a short ginger decoction, and the only real work is patience. A few of the terms and quantities need translating.
- Currant quantityTwo quarts of red currants is roughly 2-2.5 lb of stemmed fruit. Leave them whole for the first 24 hours; the whiskey draws out juice and colour before you crush them, which keeps the extraction clean.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined cane sugar sold in hard cones and broken up as needed. Plain granulated sugar is the direct equivalent, one pound to every two quarts of strained liquor.
- The ginger stepA quarter pound of bruised ginger, most likely dried root, boiled and the liquid added to the cordial. The original never says how much water, or indeed that water is used at all — use just enough to cover, simmer 15-20 minutes, and add the cooled liquid to taste rather than dumping it all in, since a quarter pound is assertive.
- Flannel bagA jelly bag. A double layer of damp cheesecloth in a sieve does the same job. Let it drip rather than squeezing, or the cordial goes cloudy and you will be filtering it twice.
- Settling and filteringAfter the sugar and ginger go in, the mixture wants some days undisturbed so the fine pulp and sediment drop out. Rack the clear liquid off the sediment, then filter through a coffee filter or fine cloth if you want it bright.
- Sealing the corksSealing wax over the cork was the period method of keeping air out. A screw-cap bottle achieves the same thing. The alcohol and sugar do the preserving; this is not a canning recipe and needs no processing.
- Raspberry variationThe note about half red raspberry juice is worth taking. Raspberry rounds off the sharp edge of currant, and the two were commonly paired in Victorian summer drinks.
- Yield and servingExpect around two quarts of finished cordial from the quantities given. It is drunk in small glasses, or diluted with soda water; the recipe gives a month as the point at which it is fit for use.
Fruit cordials of this kind sat in the awkward middle ground of the Victorian household — not quite a spirit, not quite a medicine. Red currants were a standard fixture of kitchen gardens, ripening in a short glut in summer that had to be dealt with all at once, and steeping in spirit was one of the few ways to hold their flavour. The heavy hand with ginger is characteristic: ginger cordials were long regarded as settling to the stomach, and the line between a summer drink and a domestic remedy was one many cookbook compilers felt no need to draw. The recipe is credited to Mrs. Spence, one of the many named contributors whose signed receipts make up this book — a collective format common to community-compiled cookbooks of the period.