844. Champagne Cider

844.    Champagne Cider. Good cider, pale, 1 hogshead; spirit, 3 gallons; honey or sugar, 20 pounds. Mix and let them rest for 2 weeks, then fine with skimmed milk, i gallon. This will be very pale; and a similar article, when bottled in champagne bottles, and silvered and labeled, has been often sold to the ignorant for champagne. It opens very brisk if managed properly.

845. Fine Champagne Cider

845.    Fine Champagne Cider is made as follows: - To 100 gallons of good cider put 3 gallons of strained honey, or 24 pounds of good white sugar. Stir well and set it aside for a week. Clarify the cider with half a gallon of skimmed milk, or 1/4 pound of dissolved isinglass, and add 4 gallons of pure spirits. After 2 or 3 days bottle the clear cider, and it will become sparkling. In order to produce a slow fermentation, the casks containing the fermenting liquor must be bunged up tight. It is a great object to retain much of the carbonic gas in the cider, so as to develop itself after being bottled.

846. Champagne Cider

846.    Champagne Cider. (Another receipt.) 10 gallons of cider, old and clear. Put it in a strong iron-bound cask, pitched inside (like beer-casks); add 21/2 pints clarified white plain syrup; then dissolve in it 5 ounces tartaric acid; keep the bung ready in hand, then add 71/2 ounces of bicarbonate of potassa; bung it as quickly and as well as possible.

847. To Imitate Champagne Cider

847.    To Imitate Champagne Cider. Cider will resemble champagne if you put a tea-spoonful carbonate of soda, 2 tea-spoonfuls fine sugar, and a table-spoonful brandy in a tumbler, and fill it up with sharp cider.

848. How to Imitate Cider

848.    How to Imitate Cider. A very fair imitation cider may be produced by using the following receipt:- 25 gallons soft water; 2 pounds tartaric acid; 25 pounds New Orleans sugar; 1 pint yeast. Put all the ingredients into a clean cask and stir them up well after standing 24 hours with the bung out. Then bung the cask up tight, add 3 gallons spirits, and let it stand 48 hours, after which time it will be ready for use.

849. To Imitate Sweet Cider

849.    To Imitate Sweet Cider. Take water, 100 gallons ; honey, 5 gallons; catechu powdered, 3 ounces ; alum, 5 ounces; yeast, 2 pints. Ferment for 15 days in a warm place (in the sun if possible); then add bitter almonds, 1/2 pound; cloves, 1/2 pound; burnt sugar, 2 pints; whiskey, 3 gallons. If acid be in excess, correct by adding honey or sugar. If too sweet, add sulphuric acid to suit the taste. We should prefer to add cider vinegar for acidulating when necessary.

850. Cheap Imitation Cider

850.    Cheap Imitation Cider. Take water, 35 gallons; sulphuric acid, enough to make the water pleasantly sour; brown sugar,

50 pounds; alum, 4 ounces; ginger, 5 ounces; cloves, 5 ounces; bitter almonds, 6 ounces. Boil the last 4 ingredients in 2 gallons of the water for 2 hours, strain, and add, this decoction to the other water. Burnt sugar may be added, to color, if wished. From 3 to 4 gallons of whiskey, if mixed with it, will give more body. It is generally known, we suppose, that bisulphite of lime may be advantageously employed in fresh cider to stop its conversion to vinegar. (See No. 835 (To Preserve Cider).)