Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesLeslie, Eliza
General
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Leslie, Eliza
Cooking, American
Gather the elderberries when quite ripe; put them into a stone jar,
mash them with a round stick, and set them in a warm oven, or in a
large kettle of boiling water till the jar is hot through, and the
berries begin to simmer. Then take them out, and press and strain them
through a sieve. To every quart of juice allow a pound of Havanna or
Lisbon sugar, and two quarts of cold soft water. Put the sugar into a
large kettle, pour the juice over it, and, when it has dissolved, stir
in the water. Set the kettle over the fire, an& boil and skim it till
the scum ceases to rise. To four gallons of the liquor add a pint and a
half of brandy. Put it into a keg, and let it stand with the bung put
in loosely for four or five days, by which time it will have ceased to
ferment. Then stop it closely, plastering the bung with clay. At the
end of six months, draw off a little of it; and if it is not quite
clear and bright, refine it with the whites and shells of three or four
eggs, beaten to a stiff froth and stirred into a quart of the wine,
taken out for the purpose and then returned to the cask; or you may
refine it with an ounce or more of dissolved isinglass. Let it stand a
week or two, and then bottle it.
This is an excellent domestic wine, very common in England, and
deserving to be better known in America, where the elderberry tree is
found in great abundance. Elderberry wine is generally taken mulled
with spice, and warm.
ELDER FLOWER WINE.
Take the flowers or blossoms of the elder tree, and strip them from the
stalks. To every quart of flowers allow one gallon of water, and three
pounds of while sugar. Boil and skim the sugar and water, and then pour
it hot on the flowers. When cool, mix in with it some lemon juice and
some yeast; allowing to six gallons of the liquor the juice of six
lemons, and four or five table-spoonfuls of good yeast stirred in very
hard. Let it ferment for three days in a tub covered with a double
blanket. Then strain the wine through a sieve, (add six whites of eggs
beaten to a stiff froth, or an ounce of melted isinglass,) and put it
into a cask, in the bottom of which you have laid four or five pounds
of the best raisins, stoned. Stop the cask closely, and in six months
the wine will be fit to bottle. It will much resemble Frontiniac, the
elder flowers imparting to it a very pleasant taste.
CIDER WINE.
Take sweet cider immediately from the press. Strain it through a
flannel bag into a tub, and stir into it as much honey as will make it
strong enough to bear up an egg. Then boil and skim it, and when the
scum ceases to rise, strain it again. When cool, put it into a cask,
and set it in a cool cellar till spring. Then bottle it off; and when
ripe, it will be found a very pleasant beverage. The cider must be of
the very best quality, made entirely from good sound apples.
MEAD.
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