Cordial Cherry Water.
Nine pounds of the best red cherries, nine pints of claret, eight ounces of cinnamon, three ounces of nutmegs; bruise your spice, stone your cherries, and steep them in the wine; then add to them half a handful of rosemary, half a handful of balm, and one quarter of a handful of sweet marjoram. Let them steep in an earthen pot twenty-four hours, and, as you put them into the alembic to distil them, bruise them with your hands; make a gentle fire under them, and distil by slow degrees. You may mix the waters at your pleasure when you have drawn them all. Sweeten it with loaf sugar; then strain it into another glass vessel, and stop it close that the spirits may not escape.