TEMPERANCE DRINKS.
The advocates of entire abstinence from intoxicating drinks seem to
be divided into three classes. One class consider it to be a sin _in
itself_, to take anything that contains the intoxicating principle.
Another class adopt the temperance pledge on the principle urged by
St. Paul in 1 Cor. 8: 13, and engage not to use intoxicating drinks
_as a beverage_, nor to offer them to others, and maintain that though
neither their pledge nor divine command requires more than this, yet
that, to _avoid the appearance of evil_, they will not use any kind
of alcoholic liquors for _any_ purpose. Such will not employ it in
_cooking_, nor keep it in their houses.
The third class believe that the wisest course is to adopt the pledge
“not to use, or offer to others intoxicating drinks _as a beverage_,”
and strictly to adhere, both to the spirit and letter of this pledge,
but not to go beyond it. Such think it proper to use wine and brandy
in cooking, and occasionally for medicinal purposes, and suppose that
the cause of temperance will be best promoted by going no farther.
The writer belongs to this last class, and therefore has not deemed
it desirable to omit or alter receipts in which wine and brandy are
employed for cooking.
It has now become almost universal, in the medical profession, to
maintain the principle, that alcoholic drinks, except as medicine,
are _never_ needful, but as the general rule, are always injurious.
And they consider that those cases where the use of them seems to
involve no evil, should be regarded as owing to the fact that a strong
constitution, or some peculiarity of temperament, can occasionally
resist the evil influence for a certain length of time, just as some
persons, by similar causes, are sustained in health in a malaria
district.
But none can tell how long a good constitution will resist the baleful
operation of alcohol or malaria, nor are these exceptions any argument
in favor either of intoxicating drinks or a pestilential atmosphere.
The great abundance of delicious and healthful drinks that are within
reach, leaves no excuse for resorting to such as are pernicious. The
following receipts furnish a great variety, and many of them are very
easily and cheaply obtained.
In regard to effervescing drinks, Dr. Pereira remarks:
“Water charged with carbonic acid forms a cool and refreshing beverage.
It acts as a diaphoretic and diuretic (i. e., to promote perspiration
and the healthful action of the kidneys), and is a most valuable agent
for checking nausea and vomiting. When it contains bicarbonate of soda
in solution, it proves antacid, and is a most valuable beverage for
persons afflicted with calculi in the bladder.”
The following receipts may be tried in succession, and some among them
will suit the taste of every one. Some of the receipts for drinks for
the sick are also very fine for common use.
_Ginger Beer Powders, and Soda Powders._
Put into blue papers, thirty grains to each paper, of bicarbonate of
soda, five grains of powdered ginger, and a drachm of white powdered
sugar. Put into white papers, twenty-five grains to each, of powdered
tartaric acid.
Put one paper of each kind to half a pint of water. The common soda
powders of the shops are like the above, when the sugar and ginger are
omitted.
Soda powders can be kept on hand, and the water in which they are used
can be flavored with any kind of syrup or tincture, and thus make a
fine drink for hot weather.
_Currant Ice Water._
Press the juice from ripe currants, strain it, and put a pound of
sugar to each pint of juice. Put it into bottles, cork and seal it, and
keep it in a cool, dry place. When wanted, mix it with ice water for
a drink. Or put water with it, make it _very_ sweet, and freeze it.
Freezing always takes away much of the sweetness.
The juices of other acid fruits can be used in the same way.
_Sarsaparilla Mead._
One pound of Spanish sarsaparilla. Boil it in four gallons of water
five hours, and add enough water to have two gallons. Add sixteen
pounds of sugar, and ten ounces of tartaric acid.
To make a tumbler of it, take half a wine-glass of the above, and then
fill with water, and put in half a teaspoonful of soda.
_Effervescing Fruit Drinks._
Very fine drinks for summer are prepared by putting strawberries,
raspberries, or blackberries into good vinegar and then straining it
off, and adding a new supply of fruit till enough flavor is secured, as
directed in Strawberry Vinegar. Keep the vinegar bottled, and in hot
weather use it thus. Dissolve half a teaspoonful or less of saleratus,
or soda in a tumbler, very little water till the lumps are all out.
Then fill the tumbler two-thirds full of water, and then add the fruit
vinegar. If several are to drink, put the soda, or saleratus into the
pitcher, and then put the fruit vinegar into each tumbler, and pour the
alkali water from the pitcher into each tumbler, as each person is all
ready to drink, as delay spoils it.
_Effervescing Jelly Drinks._
When jams or jellies are too old to be good for table use, mix them
with good vinegar, and then use them with soda, or saleratus, as
directed above.
_Summer Beverage._
Ten drops of oil of sassafras. Ten drops of oil of spruce. Ten drops
of oil of wintergreen. Two quarts of boiling water poured on to
two great spoonfuls of cream tartar. Then add eight quarts of cold
water, the oils, three gills of distillery yeast (or twice as much
home-brewed), and sweeten it to the taste. In twenty-four hours, bottle
it, and it is a delicious beverage.
_Simple Ginger Beer._
One great spoonful of ginger and one of cream tartar. One pint of
home-brewed yeast and one pint of molasses. Six quarts of water. When
it _begins_ to ferment bottle it, and it will be ready for use in eight
hours.
_Orange, or Lemon Syrup._
Put a pound and a half of white sugar to each pint of juice, add some
of the peel, boil ten minutes, then strain and cork it. It makes a fine
beverage, and is useful to flavor pies and puddings.
_Acid Fruit Syrups._
The juice of any acid fruit can be made into a syrup by the above
receipt, using only a pound of sugar for each pint of juice, and kept
on hand for summer drink.
_Imitation Lemon Syrup._
Four ounces tartaric acid, powdered. Two drachms oil of lemon. This
can be kept in a vial for a month, and then must be renewed. A
tablespoonful put to water sweetened with loaf sugar, makes six glasses
of lemonade.
_Superior Ginger Beer._
Ten pounds of sugar.
Nine ounces of lemon juice.
Half a pound of honey.
Eleven ounces bruised ginger root.
Nine gallons of water. Three pints of yeast.
Boil the ginger half an hour in a gallon and a half of water, then add
the rest of the water and the other ingredients, and strain it when
cold, add the white of one egg beaten, and half an ounce of essence of
lemon. Let it stand four days then bottle it, and it will keep good
many months.
_Lemon Sherbet._
Dissolve a pound and a half of loaf sugar in one quart of water, add
the juice of ten lemons, press the lemons so as to extract not only the
juice, but the oil of the rind, and let the skins remain a while in the
water and sugar. Strain through a sieve, and then freeze it like ice
cream.
_Orange Sherbet._
Take the juice of a dozen oranges, and pour a pint of boiling water on
the peel, and let it stand, covered, half an hour. Boil a pound of loaf
sugar in a pint of water, skim, and then add the juice and the water in
the peel to the sugar. Strain it and cool it with ice, or freeze it.
The juice of two lemons and a little more sugar improves it.
_Sham Champagne._
One lemon sliced.
A tablespoonful of tartaric acid.
One ounce of race ginger.
One pound and a half of sugar.
Two gallons and a half of boiling water poured on to the above. When
blood warm, add a gill of distillery yeast, or twice as much of
home-brewed. Let it stand in the sun through the day. When cold in the
evening, cork and wire it. In two days it is ready for use.
_Coffee._
Mocha and Old Java are the best, and time improves all kinds. Dry it a
long time before roasting. Roast it quick, stirring constantly, or it
will taste raw and bitter. When roasted, put in a bit of butter the
size of a chestnut. Keep it shut up close, or it loses its strength and
flavor. Never grind it till you want to use it, as it loses flavor by
standing.
To prepare it, put two great spoonfuls to each pint of water, mix
it with the white, yolk, and shell of an egg, pour on hot, but not
boiling water, and boil it not over ten minutes. Take it off, pour in
half a tea-cup of cold water, and in five minutes pour it off without
shaking. When eggs are scarce, clear with fish skin, as below. Boiled
milk improves both tea and coffee, but must be boiled separately. Much
coffee is spoiled by being burned black instead of brown, and by being
burned unequally, some too much and some too little. Constant care and
stirring are indispensable.
_Fish Skin for Coffee._
Take the skin of a mild codfish which has not been soaked, rinse and
then dry it in a warm oven, after bread is drawn. Cut it in inch
squares. One of these serves for two quarts of coffee, and is put in
the first thing.
_Chocolate._
Allow three large spoonfuls of scraped chocolate to each pint of water,
or take off an inch of the cake for each quart of water, boil it half
an hour, and do not boil the milk in it, but add it when wanted.
_Cocoa and Shells._
Dry the nut in a warm oven after bread is drawn, pound it, and put an
ounce to each pint of water. Boil an hour, and do not add milk till
it is used. If shells are used, soak them over night, then boil them
an hour in the same water. Put in as much as you like. Boil cocoa and
chocolate the day before, cool and take off the oil, and then heat for
use, and it is as good, and more healthful.
_Tea._
The old-fashioned rule to put one teaspoonful for each person, is not
proper, as thus fifty persons would require fifty teaspoonfuls, which
is enormous. Every person must be guided by taste in this matter.
Tea is spoilt unless the water is boiling when it is made. Black tea
improves by boiling, but green is injured by it.
_Ochra._
It is said that the seeds of ochra burnt like coffee, make a beverage
almost exactly like it.
_Children’s Drinks._
There are drinks easily prepared for children, which they love much
better than tea and coffee, for no child at first loves these drinks
till trained to it. As their older friends are served with _green_ and
_black_ tea, there is a _white_ tea to offer them, which they will
always prefer, if properly trained, and it is _always_ healthful.
_White Tea._
Put two teaspoonfuls of sugar into half a cup of good milk, and fill it
with boiling water.
_Boy’s Coffee._
Crumb bread, or dry toast, into a bowl.
Put on a plenty of sugar, or molasses.
Put in one half milk and one half boiling water.
To be eaten with a spoon, or drank if preferred.
Molasses for sweetening is preferred by most children.
_Strawberry Vinegar._
Put four pounds very ripe strawberries, nicely dressed, to three quarts
of the best vinegar, and let them stand three, or four days. Then drain
the vinegar through a jelly-bag, and pour it on to the same quantity of
fruit. Repeat the process in three days a third time.
Finally, to each pound of the liquor thus obtained, add one pound of
fine sugar. Bottle it and let it stand covered, but not tight corked, a
week; then cork it tight, and set it in a _dry_ and cool place, where
it will not freeze. Raspberry vinegar can be made in the same way.
_Royal Strawberry Acid._
Take three pounds of ripe strawberries, two ounces of citric acid, and
one quart of spring water. Dissolve the acid in the water and pour it
on to the strawberries, and let them stand in a cool place twenty-four
hours. Then drain the liquid off and pour it on to three pounds more
of strawberries, and let it stand twenty-four hours. Then add to the
liquid its own weight of sugar, boil it three or four minutes (in a
porcelain lined preserve kettle, lest metal may affect the taste), and
when cool, cork it in bottles lightly for three days, and then tight,
and seal them. Keep it in a dry and cool place, where it will not
freeze. It is very delicious for the sick, or the well.
_Delicious Milk Lemonade._
Pour a pint of boiling water on to six ounces of loaf sugar, add a
quarter of a pint of lemon juice, and half the quantity of good sherry
wine. Then add three quarters of a pint of cold milk, and strain the
whole, to make it nice and clear.
_Portable Lemonade._
Mix strained lemon juice with loaf sugar, in the proportion of four
large lemons to a pound, or as much as it will hold in solution; grate
the rind of the lemons into this, and preserve this in a jar. If this
is too sweet, add a little citric acid. Use a tablespoonful to a
tumbler of water.