In my grandmother's day brandy cost about five shillings a bottle (now we know what is meant by 'the good old days') and her liqueurs recipes call for gallons of the stuff as casually as today's call for one measly bottle.

Nevertheless, one bottle of gin, whisky or brandy will give two bottles of the finished product with a high percentage of alcohol at half the cost of the commercial product.

Before going on to the liqueurs recipes, let me explain that a homemade wine usually has an alcohol content of fourteen per cent by volume (approximately 24° proof). Such a wine will keep well because this amount of alcohol is usually high enough to destroy souring yeast and the bacteria which cause vinegar ness immediately it comes into contact with them. Thus it will be seen that a nice percentage of alcohol acts as its own preservative.

The alcohol content of commercial wines rarely exceeds twenty per cent by volume (approximately 35° proof); more often they range between fourteen per cent by volume (approximately 24° proof) and nineteen per cent by volume (approximately 33° proof), which is a high percentage of alcohol. Clearly, then, we could very well dilute the 70° proof of gin (forty per cent by volume) to 35° proof (twenty per cent by volume) by making one bottle into two bottles and still have a very strong sloe gin.

Whisky and rum could be similarly treated, while brandy might well be diluted even more owing to its higher spirit content. Bear in mind that it would be unwise to reduce the proof to below 30°. The best plan to start with is to make one bottle into two as the recipes advise or make half a bottle into a whole bottle by using half of everything in the liqueurs recipes.

You could make three or four bottles from one bottle of the spirit if you were proposing to use it up fairly quickly, such as at a party or over the three-day Christmas.

Naturally, we shall be diluting the flavors of the spirits we are using for our liqueurs, but we shall be adding the flavors of our choice to counter-balance this, In any case, the commercial spirits mentioned above are rarely drunk neat. Whisky is usually diluted with water (which in my opinion is nigh on a crime) or ginger or soda, while rum is often diluted with peppermint or orange cordial. Gin is usually diluted with lemon or orange cordial to make the popular gin and orange, etc. And in most cases the spirit is diluted to one-third of its volume. Therefore, the proof spirit content of the whisky and soda or gin and orange served over the bar has been reduced to about 23° proof. The sloe gin we shall be making with these recipes will be 35° proof while the cherry brandy will be 40° proof. Bear this in mind while drinking them otherwise you will finish up under the table in double-quick time.

If you happen to have some home-made sloe wine, damson wine, orange wine, cherry wine or some other sort of home-made wine, you may employ one bottle of the spirits mentioned to make more than two bottles of cherry brandy, sloe gin or whichever liqueurs you have in mind. This point is covered fully further on in this chapter.

The following recipes produce liqueurs - wines which are neither sweet nor dry; if you like a slightly sweet wine increase the amount of sugar by half that given in the recipes. On the other hand, if you like wines drier than average reduce the amount of sugar by half.

In the recipes called liqueurs, the amount of sugar should remain as in the recipes.

As we shall be using bottles as our means of measuring our materials, bear in mind that a bottle is a bottle and that half a bottle is half a bottle. A bottle the recognized standard wine bottle or the bottles containing spirits hold five gills; this is one gill more than a pint. Many bottles containing imported wines hold one pint. Because we shall be making exactly two bottles of liqueurs from one bottle of the spirit we are using, be sure that the second bottle you use holds the same amount as the bottle of spirit you are using. If you are using White Horse whisky or Booth's gin, try to use a similar second bottle.