English Curaçao
Ingredient: orange
What it is: FruitIngredient: whiskey
What it is: WhiskeyIngredient: simple syrup
Also Known As: sugar syrup What it is: SyrupIngredient: alum
Also Known As: alum powder What it is: AdditiveIngredient: potassium carbonate
What it is: AdditiveA white salt, soluble in water (insoluble in alcohol), which forms a strongly alkaline solution. It can be made as the product of potassium hydroxide's absorbent reaction with carbon dioxide. Potassium carbonate is sometimes used as a buffering agent in the production of mead or wine.
Cut away the peel of oranges very thin, until you have obtained half a dozen ounces of it; put these into a quart bottle, and then pour in a pint of genuine whiskey. Cork the bottle down tightly, and let the rind remain infused for ten or twelve days, giving the bottle a good shake as often as you have an opportunity for so doing; at the end of this period, take out the orange peel, and fill the bottle with clarified syrup, shake it well with the spirit, and let it remain for three days. Pour a teacupful of the liqueur into a mortar, and beat up a drachm of powdered alum, and an equal quantity of carbonate of potash; pour this, when well mixed, into the bottle, shake it well, and in a week you will find the Curaçoa perfectly transparent, and equal in flavor to that imported from Malines, or any other place in the universe.