Page:Housekeeper and butler's guide, or, A system of cookery, and making of wines.pdf/21

21 up with water; colour it with archill in a hag, till it is a deep red; let it fine of itself. If you prefer it white, omit the archill and elder-juice, and fine it the same as English gin.

To four quarts of brandy, put nine Seville oranges, a pound and a quarter of loaf-sugar, and a half penny-weight of the essense of lemon; pare the oranges thin, and steep the peel in the brandy, close stopped in a stone bottle for twelve days; then boil the sugar in three pints of water for an hour; scum it, and when cold mix it with the brandy; squeeze the oranges therein; strain it through a filtering-bag, and what is deficient of four quarts, make up with water

The best and most usual way of making it, is to pick the cherries clean from the stalks into a vessel till it is half full, then fill it up with rectified molasses brandy, which is commonly used for this composition; and when it has infused eighteen days, draw off the liquor by degrees as you want it, till it is all drawn off; then fill the vessel a second time with brandy nearly full, let it stand a full month before you begin to draw it off, and then draw it off as you want it. You may use the same fruit a third time, by just covering them with brandy that is over proof; let it stand seven weeks, and when you draw it off for use, you may lower it by putting as much water as the brandy was above proof. Press the cherries as long as any liquor is in them, before you fling them away.

When you make the cherry-brandy from the first infusion, (which is the best, and contains most