Beverages

Below are several recipes and instructions for making various common beverages from 1867. Along with details about coffee, the beans and some of the various types known then.

TO MAKE PUNCH.
For a gallon of punch take six fresh Sicily lemons; rub the outsides of them well over with lumps of double-refined loaf-sugar, until they become quite yellow; throw the lumps into the bowl; roll your lemons well on a clean plate or table; cut them in half and squeeze them with a proper instrument over the sugar; bruise the sugar, and continue to add fresh portions of it, mixing the lemon pulp and juice well with it. Much of the goodness of the punch will dc]>end upon this. The quantity of sugar to be added should be great enough to render the mixture without water pleasant to the palate even of a child. When this is obtained, add gradually a small quantity of hot water, just enough to render the syrup thin enough to pass through the strainer. Mix all well together, strain it, and try if there be sugar enough; if at all sour add more. When cold put in a little cold water, and equal quantities of the best cogniac brandy and old Jamaica rum, testing its strength by that infallible guide the palate, A glass of calves'-foot jelly added to the syrup when warm will not injure its qualities.
The great secret of making good punch may be given in a few words: a great deal of fre>h lemonjuice— more than enough of good sugar — a fair proportion of brandy and rum, and very little water.

To make Nectar.
Put half a pound of loaf sugar into a large porcelain jug; add one pint of cold water; bruise and stir the sugar till it is completely dissolve:!; pour over it half a bottle^of hock and one bottle of Madeira. Mix them well together, and grate in half a nutmeg, with a drop or two of tbe essence of lemon. Set the jug in a bucket of ice tor one hour.

TO MAKE COFFEE.
Tbe best coffee is imported from Mocha. It is said to owe much of its superior quality to being
kept lone. Attention to the following eircumItances is likewise necessary. 1. The plant should be grown in a dry situation and climate. 2. 1 be berries ought to be thoroughly ripe before they are gathered. 3. They ought to be well dried in the sun: and 4. Kept at a distance from any substance (as spirits, spices, dried 8sh, etc.) by which the taste and flavor of the berry may be injured.
To drink coffee perfection, it should be made from the best Mocha or Java, or both mixed, carefully roasted, and after cooling for a few minutes, reduced to powder, and immediately infused; the decoction will then be of a superior description. But for ordinary use, Java, Laguayra, Maraeaibo, Bio and other grades of coffee may be used. An equal mixture of Mocha, Java and Laguayra make an excellent flavor. We have been recently shown (1865) some samples of Afrioan ooffoe from Liberia, which is said to possess a very superior flavor. The following mode or preparing it may be adopted:
1. The berries should be oarefully roasted, by a gradual application of heat, browning, but not burning them. .
2 Grinding the coffee is preferable to pounding, because the latter process is thought to press out and leave on the sides of the mortar some of the richer oily substances, which are not lost by filtrating tin or silver pot, with double Bides, between which hot water must be poured, to prevent the coffee from eooling, as practised in Germany, is good. 8imple decoction, in this implement, with boiling water, is all that is required to make a cup of good coffee; and the use of isinglass, the white of eggs, etc., to fine the liquor, is quite unnecessary. By this means, also, ooffee is made quicker than tea.
Generally, too little powder of the berry is given It requires about one small cup of ground coffee to make four cups of decoction lor the table. This is at the rate of an ounce of good powder to four common coffee cups. When the powder is put in the bag, as many cups of boiling water are poured over it as may be wanted, and if the quantity wanted is very small, so that after it is filtrated it does not reach the lower end of the bag, the liquor must be poured back three or four times till it has acquired the necessary strength. Another Method.—Pour a pint of boiling water on an ounce of coffee; let it boil five or six minutes then pour out a cupful two or three times, and'return it again; put two or three isinglass chips into it, or a lump or two of fine sugar; boll it five minutes longer. Set the pot by tbo fire to keep hot for ten minutes, and the coffee will be beautifully clear. Some like a small bit of vanilla. Cream or boiled milk should always be served with coffee.
In Egypt, coffee is made by pouring boiling water upon ground coffee in the cup; to which only sugar is added. For these who like it extremely strong, make only eight cups from three ounces. If not fresh roasted, lay it before a fire till hot and dry; or put the smallest bit of fresh batter into a preserving-pan; when hot throw the coffee into it, and toss it about till it be fresh coffee most certainly promotes wakefulness, or, in other words, it suspends the inclination to sleep.
A very small cup of coffee, holding about a wineelassfull, called by the French une demi tane, drunk after dinner very strong, without cream or milk, is apt to promote digestion.
Persons afflicted with asthma have found great relief, and even a cure, from drinking very strong «offee, and those of a phlogmatio habit would do
well to take it for breakfast It is of a rather drying nature, and with corpulent nanus it would also be advisable to take it for breakfast.

Arabian Method of Preparing Coffee.
The Arabians, when they take their coffee off the fire, immediately wrap the vessel in a wet cloth, which fines the liquor instantly, makes it cream at the top, and occasions a more pungent steam, which they take great pleasure in snuffing up as the coffee is pouring into the cups. They, like all other nations of the East, drink their coffee without sugar.
People of the first fashion use nothing but Sultana coffee, which is prepared in the following manner: Bruise the outward husk or dried pulp, and put it into an iron or earthen pan, which is placed upon a charcoal fire; then keep stirring it to and fro, until it becomes a little brown, but not of so deep a color as common coffee; then throw it into boiling water, adding at least the fourth part of the inward husks, which is then boiled together in the manner of other coffee. The husks must be kept in a very dry place, and parked up very dose, for the least humidity spoils the flavor. The liquor prepared in this manner is esteemed preferable to any other. The French, when they were at the court of the king of --emen, saw no other coffee drank, and they found the flavor of it very delicate and agreeable. There was no occasion to use sugar, as it had no bitter taste to correct. Coffee is less unwholesome in tropical than in other climates.
In all probability the Sultana ooffee can only be made where the tree grows; for, as .he husks have little substance if they are much dried, in order to send them to other countrios, the agreeable flavor they had when fresh is greatly impaired. Improvement in making Coffee. The process consists in simmering over a small but steady flame of a lamp. To accomplish this a vessel of peculiar construction is requisite. It should be a straiglit-sidod pot, as wide at the top as at the bottom, and inclosed in a case of similar shape, to which it must bo soldered air-tight at the top. The case to be above an inch wider than the pot, and descending somewhat less than an inch below it. It should be entirely open at the bottom, thus admitting and confining » body of hot air round and underneath the pot. The lid to be double, and the vessel, of course, furnished with a convenient handle and spout.
The extract may be made either with hot water or cold. If wanted for speedy use, hot water, not actually boiling, will be proper, and the powdered eoffee being added, close the lid tight, stop the spout with a cork, and place the vessel over the lamp. It will soon begin to simmer, and may remain unattended, till the coffee is wanted. It may then he strained through a bag of stout, close linen, which will transmit the liquid so perfectly clear as not to contain the smallest particle ol the
powder.
Though a fountain lamp is preferable, any or the common small lamps, seen in every tin shop, will answer the purpose. Aloohol, pure sporniaocti oil, or some of the recent preparations of petroleum are best, and if the wick be too high, or the oil not good, the consequence will be smoke, soot, and extinction of the aroma. The wick should be little more tbiiD one-eighth of an inch high. In this process, no trimming is required. It may be left to simmer, and will continue simmering all night without boiling over, and without any sensible diminution of quantity. Paritian Method of making Coffee. In the first placo, let ooffee be of the prime quality, grain small, roand, bard, and clear; perfectly dry and sweet; and at least three years old—let it be gently roasted until it be of a light brown color; avoid burning, for a single scorched grain will spoil a pound. Let this operation be performed at the moment the coffee is to be used; then grind it while it is yet warm, and take of the powder an ounce for each cup intended to be made; put this along with a small quantity of shredded saffron into the upper part of the machine, called a grecque or biggin ; that is, alnrge coffee-pot with an upper receptacle made to fit close into it, the bottom of which is perforated with small holes, and containing in its interior two movable metal strainers, over the second of which ihe powder is to be placed, and immediately under the third ; upon this upper strainer pour boiling water, and continue doing so gently until it bubbles up through the strainer; then shut the cover of the machine cW>sc down, place it near the tire, and so soon as the water has drained through the coffee, repeat the operation until the whole intended quantity be passed. Thus all the fragrnnce of its perfume will be retained with all the balsamic ana stimulating powers of its essence: and in a few moments will be obtained — without tho aid of isinglass, whites of eggs, or any of the substances with which, in the comtnon mode of preparation, it is mixed—a beverage for the gods. This is the truo Parisian mode of preparing coffee; the invention of it is due to M. de Belloy, nephew to the Cardinal of the same name.
A coffee-pot upon an entirely new plan, called the Old Dominion, and made in Philadelphia, Pa., is very much liked by some Perhaps, however, the old mode of boiling and clearing with egg, or the French mode, with the biggin or strainer, is the beyt.
Sufficient attention is not, however, paid to the proper roasting of the berry, which is of the utmost importance; to have the berry done just enough and not a grain burnt. It is customary now in most large cities for grocers to keep coffee ready roasted, which they have done in large wire cylinders, and generally well done, but not always fresh.