That the ancients loved mixtures—and sweet mixtures—is pretty evident from the writings of Pliny and others. Were a man to invite me to drink apple juice in the which had been bottled dried juniper-berries, I should probably hit that man in the eye, or send for a policeman. But two or three hundred years ago “juniper-cider” appears to have been a popular drink, although we read that “the taste thereof is somewhat strange, which by use will be much abated.”
Ginger, cloves, cinnamon, currants, honey, rosemary, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, and “clove-July-flowers,” all used to be put into cider, by way of flavouring; “but the best addition,” says the same writer, “that can be to it is that of the lees of Malaga Sack or Canary new and sweet, about a gallon to a hogshead; this is a great improver and a purifier of cider.”
Evidently in those days they had some crude sort of ideas on the subject of Cider Cup.
CHAPTER XVII CORDIALS AND LIQUEURS
A chat about cherry brandy — Cherry gin — And cherry whisky — Sloe gin — Highland cordial — What King Charles II. swallowed — Poor Charles! — Ginger brandy — Orange-flower brandy — Employment of carraway seeds — The school treat — Use and abuse of aniseed — Do not drink quince whisky — Try orange brandy instead — A hell-broth — Curaçoa — Cassis — Chartreuse — The monks as benefactors — Some quaint tavern “refreshers” — Kirschenwasser — Noyeau — Parfait amour — Maraschino — A valuable ginger cordial.
Let us commence with that grand old British eye-opener,
Cherry Brandy.
There are more ways than one of making this. Here is an old recipe.
Take six dozen pounds of cherries, half red and half black, and mash or squeeze them with your hands to pieces, and put to them three gallons of brandy, and let them stand steeping twenty-four hours. Then put the mash’d cherries and liquor a little at a time into a canvas bag, and press it as long as any juice will run; sweeten it to your taste, and put it into a vessel fit for it, and let it stand a {186} month, and bottle it out; put a lump of loaf-sugar into every bottle.
Another way, and a nicer; the idea of squeezing cherries to pieces with the human hands savouring of barbarism—and fingers.