Page:Art of Cookery 1774 edition.djvu/331

Rh half of white sugar, stir it well together, and put it into your vessel. To every six gallons put in a quart of brandy, and let it stand six weeks. If it is fine, bottle it; if it is not, draw it off as clear as you can, into another vessel or large bottles; and in a fortnight, bottle it in small bottles.

PULL your cherries when full ripe off the stalks, and press them through a hair sieve. To every gallon of liquor put two pounds of lump sugar beat fine, stir it together and put it into a vessel; it must be full: when it has done working and making nay moise, stop it close for three months, and bottle it off. THE season for procuring the liquor from the birch trees is in the beginning of March, while the sap is rising, and before the leaves shoot out; for when the sap is come forward, and the leaves appear, the juice, by being long digested in the bark, grows thick and coloured, which before was thin and clear.

The method of procuring the juice is, by boring holes in the body of the tree, and putting in fossets, which are commonly made of the branches of elder, the pith being taken out. You may without huting the tree, if large, tap it in several places, four or five at a time, and by that means save from a good many trees several gallons every day; if you have not enough in one day, the bottles in which it drops must be cork'd close, and resined or waxed; however, make use of it as soon as you can.

Take the sap and boil it as long as any scum rises, skimming it all the time: to every gallon of liquor put four pounds of good sugar, the thin peel of a lemon, boil it afterwards half an hour, skimming it very well, pour it into a clean tub, and when it is almonst cold, set it to work with yeast spread upon a toast, let it stand five or six days, stirring it often; then take such a cask as will hold the liquor, fire a large match dipt in brimstone, and throw it into the cask. stop it close till the match is extinguished, tun your wine, lay the bung on light till you find it has done working; stop it close and keep it three months, then bottle it off. GATHER the quinces when dry and full ripe; take twenty large quinces, wipe them clean with a coarse cloth, and grate them with a large grate or rasp as near the core as you can, but none of the core; boil a gallon of spring-water, throw in your quinces, let it boil softly about a quarter of an hour, then strain them well into an earthern pan on two pounds of double