Take of good Jamaica ginger, 2½ oz.
Moist sugar, 3 lbs.
cream of tartar, 1 oz.
the juice and peel of 2 middling sized lemons,
brandy ½ pint,
good solid ale yeast, ¼ pint,
water, 3½ gallons.

This will produce 4½ dozen of excellent ginger beer, which will keep twelve months. Bruise the ginger and sugar, and boil them for 20 or 25 minutes in the water, slice the lemon and put it and the cream of tartar into a large pan; pour the boiling liquor upon them, stir it well round, and when milk-warm, add the yeast; cover it over, let it remain two or three days to work, skimming it frequently; then strain it through a jelly-bag into a cask, add the brandy, bung down very close, and at the end of a fortnight or three weeks, draw it off and bottle, and cork very tight; tie the cork down with twine or wire. If it does not work well at first, add a little more yeast, but be careful of adding too much, least it taste of it.

Take, if white is intended, 6 lbs. of sugar; if brown, as much treacle, and a pot of spruce, and ten gallons of water.

This is also managed in the same way as ginger beer, except that it should be bottled as soon as it has done working.

Pour 8 gallons of cold water into a barrel, and then boiling 8 gallons more, put that in also, add 12 lbs. of molasses, with about ½ lb. of the essence of spruce; and on its getting a little cooler, ½ a pint of good ale yeast. The whole being well stirred or rolled in the barrel, must be left with the bung out for two or three days; after which the liquor may be immediately bottled, well corked up, and packed in saw-dust or sand, when it will be ripe, and fit to drink in a fortnight.

Remember, that it should be drawn off into quart stone bottles, and wired.

For a cask of six gallons, mix well together ¼ lb. of the purest essence of spruce, 7 lbs. of loaf-sugar made into a clarified syrup, and about 1½ gallons of hot water; and when sufficiently stirred and incorporated; put it into the cask, and fill up with cold water. Then add about a ¼ of a pint of good ale yeast, shake the cask well, and let it work for three or four days: after which, bung it up. In a few days it may be bottled off after the usual manner, and in a week or ten days it will be fit for use. If, on bunging it close, about ¼ of an oz. of isinglass, first dissolved in a little of the warmed liquor, or in cider, be stirred in, by way of fining, it will acquire a superior degree of clearness. In proportion to the coldness of the weather, the quantity of yeast should be increased. Some, instead of yeast, use ale or beer-grounds the first time of making, and afterwards the grounds of their former spruce beer. In warm weather, very little ferment is requisite.

Take of water any quantity. Impregnate it with about ten times its volume of carbonic acid gas, by means of a forcing pump.

Take of water 1 gallon,
carbonate of magnesia, 3 drachms, and
impregnate it as above.

Take one ounce of subcarbonate of potass, and impregnate as above.

Take 2 ounces of subcarbonate of soda, and impregnate as above.

Take of tartaric acid, ½ oz.
loaf sugar, 3 oz.
essence of lemon, ½ drachm.

Powder the tartaric acid and the sugar very fine, in a marble or wedgewood mortar, (observe never to use a metal one) mix them together, and pour the essence of lemon upon them, by a few drops at a time, stirring the mixture after each addition, till the whole is added, then mix them thoroughly, and divide it into twelve equal parts, wrapping each up separately in a piece of white paper. When wanted for use, it is only necessary to dissolve it in a tumbler of cold water, and fine lemonade will be obtained, containing the flavour of the juice and peel of the lemon, and ready sweetened.

To make good chocolate, put the milk and water on to boil; then scrape the chocolate fine, from one to two squares to a pint, to suit the stomach: when the milk and water boils, take it off the fire; throw in the chocolate; mill it well, and serve it up with the froth; which process will not take 5 minutes. The sugar may either be put in with the scraped chocolate or added afterwards.

It should never be made before it is wanted; because heating again injures the flavour, destroys the froth, and separates the body of the chocolate; the oil of the nut being observed, after a few minutes’ boiling, or even standing long by the fire, to rise to the top, which is the only cause this chocolate can offend the most delicate stomach.

To have coffee in perfection, it should be made from the best production, carefully roasted, and after cooling for a few minutes, reduced to powder, and immediately infused; the tincture will then be of a superior description. But for common use, the coffee of our own plantations is, in general, of very good quality.

In England, too little powder of the berry is commonly given. It requires about one small cup of coffee-powder to make four cups of tincture for the table. This is at the rate of an ounce of good powder to four common coffee-cups. When the powder is put in the bag, as many cups of boiling water is poured over it as may be wanted.

Pour a pint of boiling water on an ounce of coffee; let it boil five or six minutes, then pour out a cupful two or three times, and return it again; put two or three isinglass slips into it; or a lump or two of fine sugar; boil it five minutes longer, set the pot by the fire to keep hot for ten minutes, and the coffee will be beautifully clear. A hot cream should always be served with coffee. For foreigners, or those who like it extremely strong, make only eight dishes from three ounces. If not fresh roasted, lay it before a fire till hot and dry; or put the smallest bit of fresh butter into a preserving-pan, when hot throw the coffee into it, and toss it about till it be freshened.