To a humble and unpretending volume, little known by the world, to the _Cordial and Liqueur Makers’ Guide, and Publicans’ Instructor_, we are indebted for a large part of the information in the present chapter. This excellent and possibly unique volume of modern date contains some two hundred receipts for the manufacture of the most favourite drinks in their greatest perfection; in addition to a variety of miscellaneous matter of much practical utility to the publicans’ profession, though of no immediate interest probably to the readers of the present book. For instance, we are taught therein the mysteries of _Spirit Beading_, or, in exoteric language, the putting a head on weak spirits, and the _fining_ of sherry, port, gin, ale, and porter. Most of the receipts, we are assured, have never before appeared in print. They are the result of an experience of some thirty years. A warning is given in the preface about the common and extensive adulteration of liqueurs with essential oils, turpentine, and spirits of wine. In the first chapter of the _Cordial and Liqueur Makers’ Guide_, we find receipts for those familiar beverages which are most common in our respectable public firms—public house is what Bentham would call an emotional term—such as _Peppermint_, _Cloves_, _Rum Shrub_, _Aniseed_, _Caraway_, _Noyeau_, _Raspberry_, _Gingerette_, _Orange Bitters_, _Wormwood Bitters_, _Lemonade_, _Capillaire_, _Cherry Brandy_, _Cinnamon_, _Lovage_, and _Usquebaugh_—of these the receipt for _Lovage_ may be taken as a sole representative. This aromatic drink, which is comparatively rare, is perhaps not generally known to be prepared from a plant indigenous to Liguria, a country of Cisalpine Gaul—from which country its name is through sundry philological decadences derived.[78] After reading this, the student of human nature and mercantile morality will be fully prepared to learn that the plant indigenous to Liguria enters in no way into its composition. Mix, says the receipt, five drams of oil of nutmegs, five drams of oil of cassia, and three drams of oil of caraway in a quart of strong spirits of wine. Shake it well, and put it into a ten gallon cask with two gallons more of spirits of wine. Dissolve twenty pounds of lump sugar in hot water, add this to the spirit with a quarter of a pint of colouring, and fill up the cask with water. Fine it down with two ounces of alum dissolved in boiling water, and put into the goods[79] hot; afterwards add one ounce of salts of tartar, and stir the whole well together.