53. To make BLACK PAPER for drawing Patterns.
Take a quarter of a pound of mutton suet, and one ounce of bees wax, melt both together and put in as much lamp black as will colour it dark enough, then spread it over your paper with a rag, and hold it to the fire to make it smooth.
54. GOOSEBERRY VINEGAR another Way.
To every gallon of water, put six pounds of ripe gooseberries; boil the water and let it be cold, squeeze the berries, and then pour on the water; let it stand cover’d three days pretty warm to work, stirring it once a day; then strain it off, and to every six gallons put three pounds of coarse sugar, let it stand till it has done working, then bung it up, and keep it moderately warm, in nine months it will be ready for use.
55. To make bad Ale into good strong Beer.
Draw off the ale into a clean vessel, (supposing half a hogshead) only leave out eight or ten quarts, to which put four pounds of good hops, boil this near an hour; when quite cold, put the ale and hops into the hogshead, with eight pounds of treacle, mix’d well with four or five quarts of boil’d ale; stir it well together, and bung it up close: Let it stand six months, then bottle it for use.
56. Green GOOSEBERRY WINE.
To every quart of gooseberries, take a quart of spring water, bruise them in a mortar, put the water to them and let them stand two or three days, then strain it off, and to every gallon of liquor put three pounds and a half of sugar, then put it into the barrel, and it will of itself rise to a froth, which take off, and keep the barrel full; when the froth is all work’d off, bung it up for six weeks, then rack it off, and when the lees are clean taken out, put the wine into the same barrel; and to every gallon put half a pound of sugar, made in syrrup, and when cold mix with wine; to every five gallons, have an ounce of isinglass, dissolv’d in a little of the wine, and put in with the syrrup, so bung it up; when fine, you may either bottle it or draw it out of the vessel. Lisbon sugar is thought the best. This wine drinks like sack.
57. GINGER WINE.
Take fourteen quarts of water, three pounds of loaf sugar, and one ounce of ginger sliced thin, boil these together half an hour, fine it with the whites of two eggs; when new milk warm put in three lemons, a quart of brandy, and a white bread toast, covered on both sides with yeast; put all these together into a stand, and work it in one day; then tun it: It will be ready to bottle in five days, and be ready to drink in a week after it is bottled.
58. COWSLIP WINE another Way.
To five gallons of water, put two pecks of cowslip peeps, and thirteen pounds of loaf sugar; boil the sugar and water with the rinds of two lemons, half an hour, and fine it with the whites of two eggs; when it is near cold put in the cowslips, and set on six spoonfuls of new yeast, work it two days, stirring it twice a day; when you squeeze out the peeps to tun it, put in the juice of six lemons, and when it has done working in the vessel, put in the quarter of an ounce of isinglass, dissolv’d in the little of the wine till it is a jelly; add a pint of brandy, bung it close up two months, then bottle it. This is right good.