1922 Home-Made Beverages and American Drinks by M E Steedman

Home-made Beverages.

77

the jar tightly, and infuse for three months, shaking occasionally, then strain through filtering paper into bottles, cork them tightly and seal with bottling wax. Sloe Ratafia. Well crush 6 pounds of sloes, strew over them a pound of castor sugar, mix well, and leave for 24 hours, then strain off all the juice and to every pint allow a quart of good brandy,a pound of cane sugar, an inch of bruised ciimamon, S cloves, and the thinly pared rind of half a small lemon. Infuse for a month in a tightly closed jar, then filter and bottle. Sloe Wine. Put 4 gallons of ripe sound sloes into a tub with 4 gallons of boiling water, and leave for five days, stirring frequently. Strain and measure the liquid and to every gallon add 4lb. of pure cane sugar, stir untU dissolved, then pour into a cask. Keep the latter well filled up, and when the fermentation is over, add a quart of brandy and half an ounce of dissolved isinglass to every 3 gallons of wine. Bung the cask tightly, and leave for 2 years before bottling. Soda Water Powders. Put 30 grains of bicarbonate of soda into each blue paper and twenty-five grains of tar- taric acid into each white paper. When re quired, put the contents of a white and blue paper into two separate tumblers, half fill them with water, mix together and drink at once. Strawberry Acid. Stalk 6 pounds of ripe sound strawberries and put them in an earthenware bowl with two and a half oz. of tartaric acid dissolved in a quartof cold water. Leave for 24 hours, then strain the liquid, and to every pint add one and a half lb. of sifted cane sugar. Stir until dissolved, then store in airtight bottles. When required, dilute to taste with plain or aerated water. Strawberry Brandy, Three-parts fill some wide-mouthed quart bottlos with ripe sound Alpine strawberries.