LEMON BRANDY

When you use lemons for punch or lemonade, do not throw away the peels, but cut them in small pieces, and put them into a glass jar or bottle of brandy. You will find this brandy useful for many purposes.

In the same way keep for use the kernels of peach and plum stones, pounding them slightly before you put them into the brandy.

Blanch and break up a pound of shelled bitter almonds or peach kernels. Mix with them the grated rinds of three large lemons, half a pint of clarified honey that has been boiled and skimmed, and three pounds of the best double-refined loaf-sugar. Put these ingredients into a jar or demijohn; pour in four quarts of the best white brandy or proof spirit; stop the vessel, and let it stand three months, shaking it every day for the first month. Then filter it, dilute it with rose water to your taste, (you may allow a quart of rose water to each quart of the liquor,) and bottle it for use.

This and any other cordial may be coloured red by mixing with it (after it is filtered) cochineal, powdered, dissolved in a little white brandy, and strained through fine muslin.

Pound in a mortar, and mix together a pound of shelled bitter almonds, an ounce of nutmegs, a pound of fine loaf-sugar, and one grain (apothecaries' weight) of ambergris. Infuse these ingredients for a week in a gallon of white brandy or proof spirit. Then filter it, and bottle it for use.

CAPILLAIRE.

Powder eight pounds of loaf-sugar, and wet it with three pints of water and three eggs well beaten with their shells. Stir the whole mass very hard, and boil it twice over, skimming it well. Then strain it, and stir in two wine glasses of orange flower water. Bottle it, and use it for a summer draught, mixed with a little lemon juice and water; or you may sweeten punch with it.

To make orgeat paste, blanch, mix together, and pound in a mortar till perfectly smooth, three quarters of a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and one quarter of a pound of shelled bitter almonds; adding frequently a little orange flower or rose water, to keep them from oiling; and mixing with them, as you proceed, a pound of fine loaf-sugar that has been previously powdered by itself. When the whole is thoroughly incorporated to a stiff paste, put it into little pots and close them well. It will keep five or six months, and, when you wish to use it for a beverage, allow a piece of orgeat about the size of an egg to each half pint or tumbler of water. Having well stirred it, strain the mixture through a napkin.

To make liquid orgeat for present use; blanch and pound in a mortar, with rose water, a quarter of a pound of sweet and an ounce and a half of bitter almonds. Then sweeten three pints of rich milk with half a pound of loaf-sugar, and stir the almonds gradually into it. Boil it over hot coals; and as soon as it comes to a boil, take it off and stir it frequently till it gets cold. Then strain it, add a glass of brandy, and put it into decanters. When you pour it out for drinking dilute it with water.

Take fine ripe lemons, and roll them under your hand on the table to increase the quantity of juice. Then cut and squeeze them into a pitcher, and mix the juice with loaf-sugar and cold water. To half a pint of lemon juice you may allow a pint and a half of water; and ten or twelve moderate sized lumps of sugar. Send it round in little glasses with handles.

To make a tumbler of _very good_ lemonade, allow the juice of one lemon and four or five lumps of sugar, filling up the glass with water. In summer use ice water.

ORANGEADE.

Is made of oranges, in the same proportion as lemonade. It is very fine when frozen.

Roll twelve fine lemons under your hand on the table; then pare off the yellow rind very thin, and boil it in a gallon of water till all the flavour is drawn out. Break up into a large bowl, two pounds of loaf-sugar, and squeeze the lemons over it. When the water has boiled sufficiently, strain it from the lemon-peel, and mix it with the lemon juice and sugar. Stir in a quart of rum or of the best whiskey.

Two scruples of flowers of benjamin, steeped in a quart of rum, will make an infusion which much resembles the arrack of the East Indies. It should be kept in a bottle, and a little of it will be found to impart a very fine and fragrant flavour to punch made in the usual manner.