Virginia Cookery-book

Gather ripe Morello or red sour cherries ; pick them from the stalk, and put them in an earthen pot, which must be set into an iron pot of water ; make the water boil, but take care that none of it gets into the cherries. When the juice is extracted, pour it into a bag made of tolerably thick cloth, which will permit the juice, but not the pulp, of the cherry to pass through. Put a pound of sugar to a pint of juice, and, when it becomes perfectly cl^ar, bottle. Put half a gill of spirit into each bottle before you pour in the juice. Cover the corks with rosin. Cherry shrub will keep all summer in a dry, cool place, and is delicious mixed with water. Blackberry Acid. Is made precisely by the recipe for strawberry acid, and is one of the finest of all, actually improving by being kept till the second year. Its color is a rich garnet. Blackberry Cordial. (Medicine.) To two quarts of blackberry juice add one pound of sugar (the best loaf), half an ounce of nutmegs grated, half an ounce of powdered cloves, half an ounce of powdered cinnamon, and half an ounce of allspice, also pulverized. Boil all together for a short while, and when cold add one pint of fourth-proof brandy, or pure rectified whiskey, and half a pound of white sugar ; crack up a handful of the seeds, and throw them into the juice before it is strained, to heighten the flavor ; put the juice and sugar on the fire ; let it come to a boil, and skim well When it is cold, add the spirit, and bottle, corking securely. CuBBAKT Shrub. To every pint of currant-juice run through a bag without squeezing add one pound of sugar, and use as a summer drink, mixed with three times as much water as juice, iced bountifully. If the shrub is to be kept any length of time, and in that case only, add half a gill of brandy to each quart-bottle of the shrub. The red-cluster sour cherry and the Morello cherry also make a delicious cooling beverage, treated in the same fashion. See Virginia Cookery-book. CHAPTER XXm. HOME-MADE WINES. Blackberry Wine, Nos. 1, 2, and 3.— Wine from Catawba Grapes. — Grape Wine. — Currant Wine.— Good Cooking Wine. While the compilers of these recipes advocate the strictest temperance, they do not exclude from their collection directions for making pure wines at home, useful as they are for medicinal purposes, and for making wholesome and palatable some articles of diet. Since Jesus Christ, our great exemplar, in his intercourse with men, seems to have taught moderation, rather than the exclusion of any creature fitted for nourishment from lawful use, we cannot think it wrong to make, or teach others how to make, pure wine for home consumption. Blackberry Wine, No. 1. (Orange Connty Recipe.) Coyer your blackberries with cold water ; crush the berries well with a wooden masher ; let them stand twenty-four hours ; then strain, and to one gallon of juice put three pounds of common brown sugar ; put into widemouthed jars for several days, carefully skimming off the scum that will rise to the top ; put in several sheets of brown paper, and let them remain in it three days ; then skim again, and pour through a funnel into your cask. There let it remain undisturbed till March ; then strain again, and bottle. These directions, if carefully followed out, will insure you excellent wine. Blackberry Wine, No. 2. (Culpepper Coanty Recipe.) Take ripe blackberries and press the juice from them ; let the juice stand thirty-six hours to ferment ; skim off whatever rises to the top ; then to every gallon of juice add one quart of water and three pounds of sugar. Let this stand in open vessels twenty -four hours ; skim and strain it, then barrel it, and keep it corked tight till March, when it should be carefully racked off and bottled. Blackberry Wine, No. 3. (Albemarle Coanty Recipe.)