The "Queen" cookery books: Pickles and Preserves

two (or 2 oz. cayenne), and a few cloves. Fill up with best malt vinegar, and keep the bottle shaken occasionally for two or three days, then cork down tightly and seal up. This should certainly be kept for two or three months, but the longer it is kept the better. "When wanted for use, strain off through muslin, after well shaking up the bottle. Always put back into the bottle the thick leafy part that escapes in the straining. The same flowers will bear the addition of more vinegar twice more. (I have found it better to use smaller bottles, as then each will fill up the cruet comfortably.) Rose Vinegar. — Put an ounce of rose leaves in a pint of best white wine vinegar, with a root or so of Florence lily, and let it all infuse till the liquid is strongly flavoured, then strain off and bottle. (For salads, and also abroad used for toilette purposes.) Violet Vinegar ( German ). — Pick wood violets (as they have the strongest perfume) in the spring, remove the stems, and put the flowers into bottles, shaking them down to make them lie closely, and then pour to them as much white wine vinegar as they will take, then cork and set the bottles in the sun for three or four weeks. Now strain off the vinegar, and bottle and cork it down closely. Fruit Vinegars. — Black Currant Vinegar. — Put in a preserving pan a quart of good ripe black currants, with a pint of the young currant leaves, and stir them over the fire with a new wooden spoon till the currants begin to boil, then turn it all into the jelly bag, and strain it all through, squeezing out every drop of juice you F can; return this juice to the pan with 1 lb. pure cane sugar to each quart of juice, stir it well till the sugar melts, then skim it very carefully, putting the shimmings on a sieve, and return the juice that strains through to the preserving pan ; let it stand till cold, then for each quart of this syrup allow one and a half pints of best white wine vinegar, adding, if it is to keep, from half to a pint of plain spirit to each gallon of the vinegar. Red currant vinegar is made in precisely the same way. Gooseberry Vinegar. — Choose the hairy gooseberries, either red or green, when full ripe. Break down the fruit with a wooden pestle, and allow lib. of crushed cane loaf sugar to each 2 lb. of fruit. Let it all stand for two hours, then turn it all into the preserving pan and scald till the juice runs free. Now run it through a jelly bag wrung out of warm vinegar, and to this juice allow a gill of plain spirit or brandy to each quart of juice, and then mix with it all an equal quantity of best white wine vinegar. Mulberry Vinegar. — Put into an unglazed earthenware pan 6 lb. of ripe, sound mulberries, and pour over them enough good vinegar to cover them; let them soak, covered, for twenty-four hours, then crush them with a clean wooden spoon, and again cover them with a cloth for another twenty -four hours; again bruise them, mixing them well, and add in more vinegar till a gallon has been used altogether. When this has stood for a week (mind it is well stirred up every day), strain off the liquid, and to each pint add 1 lb. of cane loaf sugar, and boil it all up well for five minutes, skimming it very carefully. Then bottle off, like raspberry vinegar.