The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

TO RECOVER PRICKED FOREIGN WINES.

Take a bottle of red port that is pricked, add to it half an ounce of tartarised spirit of wine, shake the liquor well together, and set it by for a few days, and it will be found much altered for the better. If this operation be dexterously performed, pricked wines may be absolutely recovered by it, and remain saleable for some time; and the same method may be used to malt liquors just turned sour.

To manage Hermitage and Burgundy.

Red hermitage must be managed in the same way as claret, and the white likewise, except the colouring, which it does not require. Burgundy should be managed in the same manner as red hermitage.

To manage Lisbon Wine.

If the Lisbon is dry, take out of the pipe thirty-five or forty gallons, and put in the same quantity of calcavella, stir it well about, and this will make a pipe of good mild Lisbon: or, if it be desired to convert mild into dry, take the same quantity out as above mentioned, before, and fill the pipe with Malaga sherry, stirring it about as the other. The same kind of fining used for Vidonia will answer for Lisbon wines; or it may be fined with the whites and shells of sixteen eggs, and a small handful of salt; beat it together to a froth, and mix it with a little of the wines; then pour it into the pipe, stir it about, and let it have vent for three days; after which bung it up, and in a few days it will be fine. Lisbon when bottled should be packed either in saw-dust or leather in a temperate place.

To manage Bucellas Wine.

In fining it, proceed in the same way as with the Madeira; only observe, that if not wanted very pale, keep the milk out of the finings. This tender wine should be fed with a little brandy, for if kept in a place that is either too hot or too cold, it will be in danger of turning foul.

To improve Sherry.

If the sherry be new and hot, rack it off into a sweet cask, add five gallons of mellow Lisbon, which will take off the hot taste, then give it a head, take a quart of honey, mix it with a can of wine, and put it into the cask when racking. By this method, Sherry for present use will be greatly improved, having much the same effect upon it as age.