“From famed Barbadoes, on the western main,
Fetch sugar, ounces four—fetch sack from Spain,
A pint,—and from the eastern Indian coast
Nutmeg, the glory of our northern toast;
O’er flaming coals let them together heat,
Till the all-conquering sack dissolve the sweet;
O’er such another fire put eggs just ten,
New-born from tread of cock and rump of hen:
Stir them with steady hand and conscience pricking
To see the untimely end of ten fine chicken:
From shining shelf take down the brazen skillet,—
A quart of milk from gentle cow will fill it.
When boiled and cold, put milk and sack to eggs,
Unite them firmly like the triple league,
And on the fire let them together dwell
Till Miss sing twice—you must not kiss and tell—
Each lad and lass take up a silver spoon,
And fall on fiercely like a starved dragoon.”
To bottle Beer.—(No. 468.)
When the briskness and liveliness of malt liquors in the cask fail, and they become dead and vapid, which they generally do soon after they are tilted; let them be bottled.
Be careful to use clean and dried bottles; leave them unstopped for twelve hours, and then cork them as closely as possible with good and sound new corks; put a bit of lump sugar as big as a nutmeg into each bottle: the beer will be ripe, i. e. fine and sparkling, in about four or five weeks: if the weather is cold, to put it up the day before it is drunk, place it in a room where there is a fire.
Remember there is a sediment, &c. at the bottom of the bottles, which you must carefully avoid disturbing; so pour it off at once, leaving a wine-glassful at the bottom.
*** If beer becomes hard or stale, a few grains of carbonate of potash added to it at the time it is drunk will correct it, and make draught beer as brisk as bottled ale.
Rich Raspberry Wine or Brandy.—(No. 469.)
Bruise the finest ripe raspberries with the back of a spoon; strain them through a flannel bag into a stone jar, allowing a pound of fine powdered loaf sugar to each quart of juice; stir it well together, and cover it down; let it stand for three days, stirring it up each day; pour off the clear, and put two quarts of sherry, or one of Cognac brandy, to each quart of juice; bottle it off: it will be fit for the glass in a fortnight.
N.B. Or make it with the jelly, [No. 479].