THE HOME BREW
Tea (hot)
First. Never buy poor, cheap tea. It is the dearest in the end, in every sense of the word, being unwholesome, unpalatable and wasteful. One teaspoonful of good oolong, souchong, hyson or “bud” tea, will go farther than four of a mixture which, when brewed, tastes at the best, like boiled hay.
Second. Have the kettle boiling, and freshly boiled. An hour’s simmer after the boil has once been reached, makes the water stale and flat.
Third. Draw off the tea within three minutes after the water is poured upon the dry leaves. After that, the boiling liquid extracts tannic acid in pernicious quantities and strength.
Fourth. Have the cups hot and fill with clear tea, adding sugar, or cream, or both afterwards, to suit the taste of each drinker.
Cold tea
Strain the liquid from the leaves within a few minutes after it is poured on. Set away until cold. Half-fill glasses with cracked ice; add a slice of peeled lemon, a squeeze of lemon juice (if desired) and granulated sugar to taste.
Breakfast coffee
Allow a cupful of freshly ground coffee to a quart of boiling water. Put the coffee into the strainer and add the boiling water by degrees, until it is all in. Pour off into a heated pitcher, and return this to the strainer. Repeat until the beverage is of the requisite strength, and pour into heated cups.
After-dinner coffee
Make as directed in last recipe, allowing, however, three cupfuls of boiling water to one of freshly ground coffee, and run three times through the filter.
Never pass cream with black coffee in after-dinner cups—“demi-tasses,” as the French, who taught us to drink it, call the dainty digestive agent.
To ask for cream in such a case is a gastronomic and social solecism.
Café au lait
Make strong black coffee and, while hot, add to it one-third as much scalding milk. Cover and set in boiling water until needed.
Iced coffee
Set aside café au lait until cold. Fill tumblers half-full of cracked ice; sugar to taste, and pour in the coffee.
Chocolate
Heat two cupfuls of milk, and the same of water. Rub six tablespoonfuls of chocolate to a thin, smooth paste with cold water; pour the water gradually upon it; put into a saucepan and bring it quickly to a boil. Cook thus five minutes, pour in the milk and boil ten minutes longer. Sweeten to the taste of each drinker, and lay a tablespoonful of whipped cream upon the top.
If you would make the chocolate particularly good, heat a sillibub churn and beat the beverage hard for five minutes; set in a vessel of boiling water on the range to get smoking hot; pour out, sweeten, and cap with whipped cream.
Cocoa
It is made in the same way.
Cocoa nibs or “shells”
Wet two ounces of cocoa shells with a little cold water, and stir them into a quart of boiling water. Boil steadily for an hour and a half; strain, stir in a quart of fresh milk, bring almost to the scalding point, and serve. Sweeten in the cups.
Mint punch (very fine)
Put into your punch-bowl a cupful of granulated sugar; add the juice of six lemons, and stir until the sugar melts. Put in three peeled lemons, sliced very thin, and leave in the ice until you are ready to use it. Add, then, a dozen sprays of green mint and a quart, at least, of pounded ice. Stir well for a minute, and pour from a height into it, two or three bottles of imported ginger ale.
Tea punch
Pour a quart of boiling water upon four teaspoonfuls of good tea. Cover, and leave it for five minutes. Strain off, and cool. Half-fill the punch-bowl with cracked ice, add a cupful of granulated sugar and the strained juice of four lemons. Pour the tea over these, and, as it goes to table, add a pint bottle of Apollinaris water. Strew a handful of mint sprays on the surface, and serve at once.
Strawberry punch
Pour two cupfuls of strained fresh strawberry juice upon a cupful (heaping) of granulated sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the juice of a lemon, and four cupfuls of cold water. Let it get very cold upon the ice; stir well and put into a punch-bowl. Just before serving, add a tablespoonful of maraschino, and half a cupful of fine, whole strawberries.
Cherry wine
Stem and wash ripe, sweet cherries, and with a wooden mallet crush to a pulp. Press out all the juice and to each quart of it, add a half-pound of granulated sugar and a cupful of water. Stir thoroughly, pour into a crock; cover this closely with a thickness of cheese-cloth, and let the wine ferment for a month. When the fermentation has ceased rack off and bottle.
Lemonade, or plain sherbet
Roll, peel carefully and slice thin six lemons. Put into a pitcher or bowl with alternate layers of granulated sugar, two teaspoonfuls for each lemon. Leave on the ice until you are ready to serve; then add a quart of iced water and a great lump of ice.
Lively lemonade
Make as directed in preceding recipe, but pour in at the last, a quart of chilled Apollinaris, instead of the iced water.
Raspberry vinegar
Mash the berries and, when reduced to a pulp, add enough vinegar to cover them. Set close by the stove for twelve hours, stirring often. Strain and press; add as many raspberries (mashed) to the vinegar as before; cover and leave in the kitchen or in the hot sun for six hours. Now strain, and measure the juice; add half as much water as you have juice, and stir into this five pounds of granulated sugar for every three pints of liquid. Bring slowly to a boil, let it boil up once, and strain. Bottle, cork and seal.
Blackberry vinegar
Make this by the recipe for raspberry vinegar, only putting in five and a half pounds of sugar to every three pints of the juice and water mixed.
Rhubarb wine
Boil the rhubarb in a double boiler, adding no water after you have washed it and cut it into bits. Press out all the juice and measure this. Add as much water as you have juice, sweeten to taste, and add a cup of brandy to a gallon of the liquid. Bottle and seal.
Grape juice
Stem six quarts of grapes and put them over the fire with one quart of water; bring slowly to a boil and strain. Return the juice to the fire, bring again to the boil, bottle and seal, while scalding-hot.
Cherry bounce
Beat to a pulp two pounds, each, of sweet and tart cherries, and mix together. The beating should be done with a heavy mallet that the stones may be crushed. Stir into the mashed fruit a pound and a quarter of granulated sugar; turn all into a stone crock, and stir in a quart of white whiskey. Leave thus for an hour; stir and pour into a demijohn. Cork and let it stand for a month, shaking hard each day; then let it alone for six weeks without shaking. Rack off, strain and bottle.
Wild cherry bounce
Bruise with a potato beetle five quarts of ripe, wild cherries, and stir into them four cupfuls of granulated sugar. Turn into a stone crock, cover, and set in the cellar for twenty-four hours. Now, add a quart and a cupful of brandy—stirring it in well. Let the mixture alone for six weeks—stirring every few days—before straining off the liquor through double cheese cloth. Bottle and seal. When ready for use, fill liquor glasses with crushed ice and pour the crimson cordial into them. It is an excellent tonic, and also good for a cough.
Homemade grape wine (No. 1)
Put the grapes, stems and all, into an open cask, and mash them. Cover your cask with cheese-cloth to prevent anything from falling in, as one crumb of bread will change the contents into vinegar. When the grapes have fermented, pass through a fruit press; turn the juice that has been extracted into a clean, close cask, and let it remain on its side for a month, when your wine will be ready to be bottled. By no means disturb the cask, or the wine will not be clear. Keep the wine in a dark, cool place, and lay the bottles containing it on their sides. When the grapes are fermenting, stir every day.
Grape wine (No. 2)
Crush out the juice of ripe grapes, after having picked them from the stems. A large quantity could be crushed in a cider press, but when only a few are to be used they can be mashed in a crock, or clean tub, with a potato beetle. Strain, then, through a bag, squeezing or pressing this so as to get all the juice possible. To each quart of the juice add half a pound of white sugar, and put away in a clean cask, or big jar to ferment. Cover the top, or the bung-hole, with a piece of netting. Let the juice and sugar ferment for three or four weeks, until it is clear and still. Pour it off the lees carefully, and bottle.
Matzoon
Take one and a half ounces of prepared matzoon, which you can get at drug stores, and one quart of fresh milk. Stir well and place in a pitcher at a temperature of from 70 to 90 degrees, for from nine to twelve hours, until it begins to thicken like junket; then beat it for ten minutes. Bottle in patent-stoppered bottles, and put on ice. Fresh matzoon may be made from that which you have prepared in this way. You have to buy but one bottle to start with. This quantity makes three bottles, not quite full, as it effervesces like koumiss.
Strawberry wine
Mash and strain six quarts of ripe strawberries. To every quart of juice add a quart of water and a pound of sugar. Stir well, and turn into a crock to ferment. When fermentation ceases, rack off carefully, bottle and seal.
Dandelion wine
Steep the dandelion flowers in boiling water for five minutes, and strain off the liquid, pressing the flowers hard. Sweeten to taste and add brandy in the proportion of a pint to every four gallons of liquid. Put in uncorked bottles and keep in a cool place until fermentation ceases. Draw off and rebottle.
Dandelion cordial
Four quarts of dandelion blossoms; four quarts of boiling water; four quarts of granulated sugar; three tablespoonfuls of compressed yeast; two lemons grated fine; one orange.
Let the blossoms and water stand together until lukewarm; mix and add the sugar, orange, lemons and yeast; strain, and put in a cold place for two days; then strain again. Put into a keg and let it work, without tight corking, until as clear as water.
Dandelion tea
Pour boiling water over the dandelion blossoms; let them stand at the side of the fire to steep, but not boil, for five minutes; then strain, pressing out all the juice. Sweeten to taste and drink very hot, or cold, in a glass filled with cracked ice.
Ginger beer
Boil six ounces of bruised ginger in six quarts of water for half an hour; then add five pounds of loaf sugar, a gill of lemon juice, a quarter-pound of honey, and seventeen quarts of cold water, and strain through a cloth. When it is cold put in an egg and two teaspoonfuls of essence of lemon. After standing three or four days it may be bottled.
Ginger wine
Four gallons of water and seven pounds of sugar. Boil half an hour, skimming well; let the liquor get cold. Then squeeze in the juice of two lemons. Have ready three pints of water in which the peel of two lemons and two ounces of white ginger root (pounded fine) have been boiled one hour and left to get cold. Mix with the syrup and add three pounds of halved Malaga raisins. Put all into a cask, shake well; close the cask and let it stand in the cellar for two months before racking it off and bottling it. A lump of unslaked lime as large as a pigeon’s egg put into the cask will prevent souring.
Mead
Beat to a stiff froth the whites of three eggs, and mix with six gallons of water, sixteen quarts of strained honey, and the yellow rind of two lemons, peeled very thin. Boil all together during three-quarters of an hour, skimming it well; put it into a tub and, when lukewarm, add three tablespoonfuls of the best fresh yeast. Cover, and leave it to ferment. When it has worked, transfer it to a barrel, with the lemon peel in the bottom. Let it stand six months, and bottle it.
Strawberry punch
Mash two quarts of strawberries to a pulp, pour over them three quarts of water and the juice of two lemons. Stand in a cool place for four hours, strain, and stir into the liquid a pound and a half of granulated sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, strain again, and set in a cold place until wanted. Serve in tumblers of crushed ice.
Sarsaparilla wine
To one gallon of water add one pound of sarsaparilla leaves and stems, two pounds of sugar, one-quarter of a pound of raisins, and one lemon. As the fruit contains a natural ferment, it will undergo that process spontaneously, without the use of yeast. Let it stand five days, strain and bottle. If you have not the herb, omit the sugar, and use in its place a gallon of sarsaparilla syrup.
(Purchase a “shaker” for compounding drinks in which cracked ice forms an important factor. This shaker consists simply of a thick glass tumbler, over which is turned, upside-down, a larger cup of tin. This cup fits tightly over the glass, and the contents of the tumbler may be vigorously shaken until thoroughly mixed and foamy.)
Iced orange juice
Make a syrup of a cupful of sugar and three-quarters of a cupful of water boiled together for ten minutes, then set aside until cold. Mix a half-pint of orange juice and a gill of lemon juice, and sweeten abundantly with the cold syrup. In sweetening this beverage, remember that the ice is still to be added, and that this, in melting, will dilute the syrup and thus render the drink more acid. Fill tumblers to the brim with finely-cracked ice and pour the orange mixture upon it. This is a refreshing beverage.
Milk shake
Have ready some sugar syrup made according to the directions in the recipe for iced orange juice. Sweeten a half-pint of unskimmed milk with the syrup; flavor with a half teaspoonful of vanilla extract; turn into the glass of your shaker, and add enough crushed ice to fill the glass to the brim. Shake long and hard before pouring into a chilled tumbler.
Koumiss
Dissolve a third of a yeast-cake in a gill of warm milk and add two teaspoonfuls of granulated sugar. Have ready scalded a beer bottle with a patent fastener. If you have not this, use an ordinary bottle with a straight cork, and soak the cork for half an hour to swell it. Fill the bottle three-quarters full of fresh milk, heated until just blood-warm, and pour in the yeast-mixture. Shake hard for two minutes, and cork tightly. If you use an ordinary cork, cord or wire it down. Set the bottle in the warm kitchen for six hours, or until the contents begin to “work” and foam. Then set in the ice-chest until needed. As one yeast-cake will make three bottles of koumiss it is quite as easy to make that quantity at once as it is to prepare one bottle of the stimulating and nourishing beverage.
Blackberry cordial
(Contributed)
Warm and squeeze the berries; add to one pint of juice one pint of sugar, one-half ounce of powdered cinnamon, one-fourth ounce of mace, two teaspoonfuls of cloves. Boil all together for one-fourth of an hour; strain the syrup, and to each pint add a glass of French brandy. Two or three doses of a tablespoonful or less will check any slight diarrhea.
It will arrest dysentery if given in season, and is a pleasant and safe remedy.
Raspberry cordial
(Contributed)
Sweeten the berries a little sweeter than for table use, and let them stand over night. In the morning lay in a hair sieve over a bowl; let them remain until evening, so as to thoroughly drain; then put the juice into a thick flannel bag; let it drain over night, being careful not to squeeze it, as it takes out the brightness and clearness. Do all this in a cool cellar or it may sour. To two pints of juice add one pint of French brandy and sweeten to taste.
Toast water
(Contributed)
Toast a pint of bread crusts very brown; pour cold water over them, let them stand for an hour, strain, and add cream and sugar to taste. The nourishment in the bread is easily absorbed when taken in the liquid form.
Slippery-elm tea
(Contributed)
Pour one cupful of boiling water over one teaspoonful of slippery-elm bark. When cold, strain, and add lemon juice and sugar to taste. This is very soothing in case of inflammation of the mucous membrane of the throat.
Apple tea
(Contributed)
Roast two large sour apples and pour boiling water over them. When cold, pour off the water, strain, and sweeten to taste.
Flaxseed tea
(Contributed)
Pour a pint of boiling water over an ounce of flaxseed and a little licorice-root, and let it stand where it will keep warm but not cook, for four hours. Strain through a piece of linen and make fresh every day. This is an excellent drink for a fever patient who has a cough.
Flaxseed lemonade
(Contributed)
Over four tablespoonfuls of flaxseed pour one quart of boiling water and let it steep three hours. Strain, sweeten to taste, and add the juice of two lemons. If too thick, add more water. This is very soothing in colds.
Egg-nogg
(Contributed)
Beat until very light, the yolk of one egg and a teaspoonful of sugar; then add the white of the egg beaten to a stiff froth. Stir well together, pour into a glass, and add a teaspoonful of rum or brandy and as much milk as the glass will hold. It will give more nourishment if whipped cream is used instead of milk.
Serve with grated nutmeg over the top.