Two wine-glasses old brandy, one wine-glass curaçoa, and a little thin lemon-peel, sweeten to taste, and pour over the mixture two bottles of light claret. Just before using add a pint bottle of sparkling moselle, and two bottles of fizzing water. Flavour with borage, and put a large block of ice in the bowl.
Nobody who has not tried it can understand how much the addition of a little sparkling Moselle improves a claret cup.
“For’ard On” Cup.
Put into a large bowl three bottles of claret, a large wine-glass of curaçoa, one pint of sherry, half a pint of old brandy, two wine-glasses of raspberry syrup, three oranges and one lemon cut into slices; add a few sprigs of borage, a little cucumber-rind, {94} two bottles of Seltzer water and three bottles of soda-water. Mix well, and sweeten to taste. Let the mixture stand for an hour, then strain, and put a large block of ice in it. Serve in small tumblers; and if champagne be substituted for claret, and noyeau for raspberry syrup, a most excellent champagne cup will be the result. Beware, however, of too free a hand with the noyeau. This liqueur contains hydrocyanic (otherwise Prussic) acid, and should only be used cautiously, unless evil be wished to your guests.
Cider Cup, or Cold Tankard.
This is a favourite beverage for schoolboys and university students. I cannot say that I have encountered it since the early sixties, but ’tis a refreshing drink for the river-side and the cricket-field.
Extract the juice from the peel of one lemon by rubbing loaf-sugar on it; cut two lemons into thin slices; the rind of one lemon cut thin, a quarter of a pound of loaf-sugar, and half a pint of brandy (I don’t think they allowed as much brandy as this at my old school). Pour the whole into a large jug, mix it well together, and pour one quart of cold spring-water upon it. Grate a nutmeg into it, add one pint of white wine, and a bottle of cider, sweeten to taste with capillaire or sugar, put a handful of balm and the same quantity of borage in flower, stalk downwards. Then put the jug containing this liquor into a tub of ice, and when it has remained there one hour it will be fit for use. The balm and borage should be fresh gathered. And here a few words as to the virtues of these.
In Evelyn’s Acetaria it is written:—“The {95} sprigs of borage in wine are of known virtue, to revive the hypochondriac, and cheer the hard student.”
Salmon’s Household Companion, 1710, told us: “Borage is one of the four cordial flowers; it comforts the heart, cheers melancholy, and revives the fainting spirits.”
“Borage,” wrote Sir John Hill, M.D., “has the credit of being a great cordial; throwing it into cold wine is better than all the medicinal preparations.”
“The leaves, flowers, and seeds of borage,” says the English Physician, “all or any of them, are good to expel pensiveness and melancholy.”