Madeira Wine.—To 40 gallons prepared cider, add, ¼ lb. tartaric acid; 4 gallons spirits; 3 lbs. loaf sugar. Let it stand 10 days, draw it off carefully; fine it down, and again rack it into another cask.
Sherry Wine.—To 40 gallons prepared cider, add, 2 gallons spirits; 3 lbs. of raisins; 6 gallons good sherry, and ½ ounce oil bitter almonds, (dissolved in alcohol). Let it stand 10 days, and draw it off carefully; fine it down and again rack it into another cask.
Port Wine.—To 40 gallons prepared cider, add, 6 gallons good port wine; 10 quarts wild grapes, (clusters); ½ lb. bruised rhatany root; 3 oz. tincture of kino; 3 lbs. loaf sugar; 2 gallons spirits. Let this stand ten days; color if too light, with tincture of rhatany, then rack it off and fine it. This should be repeated until the color is perfect and the liquid clear.
To correct a bad Taste and sourness in Wine.—Put in a bag the root of wild horse-radish cut in bits. Let it down in the wine, and leave it there two days; take this out, and put another, repeating the same till the wine is perfectly restored. Or fill a bag with wheat; it will have the same effect.
To restore Flat Wine.—Add four or five pounds of sugar, honey, or bruised raisins, to every hundred gallons, and bung close. A little spirits may also be added.
To restore Wine that has turned sour or sharp.—Fill a bag with leek-seed, or of leaves or twisters of vine, and put either of them to infuse in the cask.
Ginger Wine.—Take one quart of 95 per cent. alcohol, and put into it one ounce of best ginger root (bruised and not ground), five grains of capsicum, and one drachm of tartaric acid. Let stand one week and filter. Now add one gallon of water, in which one pound of crushed sugar has been boiled. Mix when cold. To make the color, boil ½ ounce of cochineal, ¾ ounce of cream tartar, ½ ounce of saleratus, and ½ ounce alum in a pint of water till you get a bright red color.
French Brandy.—Pure spirits, 1 gallon; best French brandy, or any kind you wish to imitate, 1 quart; loaf sugar, 2 ounces; sweet spirits of nitre, ½ ounce; a few drops of tincture of catechu, or oak bark, to roughen the taste if desired, and color to suit.
Gin.—Take 100 gallons of clean, rectified spirits; add, after you have killed the oils well, 1½ ounces of the oil of English juniper, ½ ounce of angelica essence, ½ ounce of the oil bitter almonds, ½ ounce of the oil of coriander, and ½ ounce of the oil of caraway; put this into the rectified spirit and well rummage it up; this is what the rectifiers call strong gin.
To make this up, as it is called by the trade, add 45 pounds of loaf-sugar, dissolved; then rummage the whole well up together with 4 ounces of roche alum. For finings there may be added two ounces of salts of tartar.