Ratafia
This is a liquor prepared from different kinds of fruits, and is of different colors, according to the fruits made use of. These fruits should be gathered when in their greatest perfection, and the largest and most beautiful of them chosen for the purpose. The following is the method for making red ratafia, fine and soft: Take twelve pounds of the black-heart cherries, two pounds black cherries, one and one-half pounds raspberries, one and one-half pounds strawberries. Pick the fruit from their stalks, and bruise them, in which state let them continue twelve hours; then press out the juice, and to every pint of it add one-half pound of sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, run the whole through the filtering-bag, and add to it three pints of proof spirit. Then take two ounces of cinnamon, two ounces mace, one dram cloves. Bruise these spices, put them into an alembic with one-half gallon of proof spirit and one quart of water, and draw off a gallon with a brisk fire. Add as much of the spicy spirit to the red ratafia as will render it agreeable; about one-quarter is the usual proportion.