Page:The Virginia Housewife or, Methodical Cook, Mary Randolph, 1836.djvu/178

172 for many years. It makes an agreeable beverage for the sick, when mixed with water.

equal quantities of morello and common black cherries; fill your cask, and pour on (to a ten gallon cask) one gallon of boiling water; in two or three hours, fill it up with brandy—let it stand a week, then draw off all, and put another gallon of boiling water, and fill it again with brandy—at the end of the week, draw the whole off, empty the cask of the cherries, and pour in your brandy with water, to reduce the strength; first dissolving one pound of brown sugar in each gallon of your mixture. If the brandy be very strong, it will bear water enough to make the cask full.

leaves from fragrant roses without bruising, fill a pitcher with them, and cover them with French brandy; next day, pour off the brandy, take out the leaves, and fill the pitcher with fresh ones, and return the brandy; do this till it is strongly impregnated, then bottle it; keep the pitcher closely covered during the process. It is better than distilled rose water for cakes, &c.

ripe cling-stone peaches, wipe off the down, cut them to the stone in several places, and put them in a cask; when filled with peaches, pour on as much peach brandy as the cask will hold; let it stand six or eight weeks, then draw it off, put in water until reduced to the strength of wine; to each gallon of this,