We will commence with the discussion of the favourite cordial of all, _Cherry Brandy_. This can either be made from Black Gean cherries, or Morellas, but the latter are better for the purpose. Every pound of cherries will require one quarter of a pound of white sugar, and one pint of the best brandy. The cherries, with the sugar well mixed with them, should be placed in wide-mouthed bottles, filled up with brandy; and if the fruit be previously pricked, the mixture will be ready in a month. But a better blend is procured if the cherries are untouched, and this principle holds good with all fruit treated in this way, and left corked for at least three months. _Sloe Gin._ For years the sloe, which is the fruit of the black-thorn, was used in England for no other purpose than the manufacture of British Port. But at this end of the nineteenth century, the public have been, and are, taking kindly to the cordial, which for a long time had been despised as an "auld wife's drink." As a matter of fact, it is just as tasty, and almost as luscious as cherry brandy. But since sloe gin became fashionable, it has become almost impossible for dwellers within twenty or thirty miles of London to make the cordial at home. For sloes fetch something like sixpence or sevenpence a pound in the market; and in consequence the hedgerows are "raided" by the (otherwise) unemployed, the fruit being usually picked before the proper time, _i.e._ when the frost has been on it. The manufacture of sloe gin is as simple as that of cherry brandy. All that is necessary to be done is to allow 1 lb. of sugar (white) to 1 lb. of sloes. Half fill a bottle--which need not necessarily be a wide-mouthed one--with sugared fruit, and "top up" with gin. If the sloes have been pricked, the liquor will be ready for use in two or three months; but _do not hurry it_. In a year's time the gin will have eaten all the goodness out of the unpricked fruit, and it is in this gradual blending that the secret (as before observed) of making these cordials lies. As a rule, if you call for sloe gin at a licensed house of entertainment, you will get a ruby-coloured liquid, tasting principally of gin--and not good gin "at that." This is because the making has been hurried. Properly matured sloe gin should be the colour of full-bodied port wine. _Apricot Brandy._