Strawberry Shrub.
4 quarts of ripe strawberries.
The juice of 4 lemons.
4 lbs. of loaf sugar.
1 pint best brandy, or colorless whiskey.
Mash the berries and squeeze them through a bag. Add the strained lemon-juice; bring quickly to a fast boil, and after it has boiled five minutes, put in the sugar and cook five minutes more. Skim as it cools, and, when quite cold, add the brandy. Be sure that your bottles are perfectly clean. Rinse them out with soda-and-water; then, with boiling water. The corks must be new. Soak them in cold water; drive into the bottles; cut off even with the top; seal with bees-wax and rosin, melted in equal quantities, and lay the bottles on their sides in dry sawdust.
Strawberries, preserved in any way, do not keep so well as some other fruits. Hence, more care must be taken in putting them up.