“30 Cold tankard--A summer beverage, used at dinner, made of brandy, cider, or perry, lemons cut in slices, cold water, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and the herbs balm and burridge. Sometimes sherry or port wine is substituted for cider. The tankard is put into a pitcher, which is iced in a tub, procured from the confectioners.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Take sweet cider immediately from the press. Strain it through a flannel bag into a tub, and stir into it as much honey as will make it strong enough to bear up an egg. Then boil and skim it, and when the scum ceases to rise, strain it again. When cool, put it into a cask, and set it in a cool cellar till spring. Then bottle it off; and when ripe, it will be found a very pleasant beverage. The cider must be of the very best quality, made entirely from good sound apples.
Sources: The passage is from C. M. (Charles Molloy) Westmacott, The English Spy: An Original Work Characteristic, Satirical, And Humor, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Leslie, Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches of 1837, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — slate cloth, grapes stamp.