The Spirit World

This classic recipe for preserving the short seasoned-yet-delicious raspberry comes from The Vintner’s, Brewer’s, Spirit Merchant’s and Licensed Victualler’s Guide (1826), but looking through old housekeeping or inkeeping instructional manuals, it seems to be a pretty standard one. The result is a sort of brightly-flavored brandy cordial, as opposed to a dry fruit brandy or more subtle infusion.

Raspberry Brandy
Pick fine dry fruit, put it into a stone jar, and the jar into a kettle of water, or on a hot hearth, till the juice will run; strain, and to every pint add half a pound of sugar, give one boil, and skim it; when cold put equal quantities of juice and brandy, shake well, and bottle.

I took two pints of nice-looking berries from the market, washed them, left them to dry, then put them in a double-boiler (aka a glass bowl set over a simmering sauce pan) until they’d broken down almost completely. After they’d cooled, I pushed them through a cheesecloth and measured the results.

My yield was about a cup of juice, so I added a quarter pound of sugar and warmed the mixture in a pan until it just simmered. I cooled that down and was left with a cup and quarter of liquid, to which I added a cup and a quarter of brandy. I used a crappy brandy that I had lying around and needed to get rid of—if you use something even halfway decent, you’ll probably get a much smoother cordial.

Even so, the result was tasty, if sweet. It’s good very cold as a digestif, but I’ve mostly been subbing it in drinks recipes for either raspberry syrup or Chambord. It doesn’t have a complex flavor, but the bright, fresh, jammy berriness of it is unusual—raspberries, especially the really fresh, highly flavored farmers’ market ones, are very perishable, so it’s cool to have that essence in a jar. I’m not sure how volatile the flavor will be, but I’m hoping the brandy helps to keep around some of the flavor compounds that degrade pretty quickly in a syrup.

If you’re looking for a great summery recipe for your brandy, try this version of a Knickerbocker, modified from David Wondrich’s in Killer Cocktails:

Knickerbocker

2.5 oz aged rum
1.5 tsps raspberry brandy
.5 tsp Grand Mariner
juice of half a lime, shaken and strained into an ice-filled glass.