Take ripe, dry raspberries, and pour over them sufficient good malt vinegar to cover them; let them stand three or four days, stirring occasionally with a silver spoon. On the fourth day, strain through a sieve, and let them drain for some hours; measure the juice, and add an equal quantity of sifted sugar; put into a lined preserving pan, and let the mixture boil gently for five or six minutes. Carefully remove the scum as it rises. When cold, bottle, and cork well. A wine-glassful with a bottle of soda-water is a refreshing “cooler” in illness.
Elderberry Punch.
Put two bottles of elderberry wine,
hallo! what’s this? I turn to the recipe for Elder Wine, and read: “A quart of brandy thrown into the cask {237} when it is about to be sealed up will greatly improve the wine.” Then what sort of a temperance drink can Elderberry Punch be? No more on that head, in the name of St. Wilfrid.
I also read, in the work of reference from which I am quoting, under the same heading, “Temperance Drinks,” that:—
“Many of the British wines, mixed with an equal quantity of water, with a little ice, make very cool and refreshing drinks.” Very, very likely. But can there be wine without fermentation? And are the total abstainers, not content with drinking alcoholic gingerade and stone ginger-beer, getting the wedge in still further. Forbid it!
Cold Spring-water
is a most excellent drink, and according to so great an authority as Sir Henry Thompson, not only the cheapest drink in the world but the best. For my own poor part I prefer milk-punch. And as the Scotchman said, I have “tried baith.”
INDEX OF RECIPES
Absinthe, [115].
Ale, Brasenose, [59] ; brewing of, [52], [53], [70] ; cock, [41], [42] ; cup, see cup ; flip, see flip ; mulled, [55] ; posset, see posset ; rum and, see rum ; sangaree, see sangaree.