Happy Fourth, everyone! In honor of the upcoming holiday, I put on red, white, and blue, and decided to make a pretty drink that Robert Roberts says is excellent for hot weather. Watch the one minute version on Instagram!
Raspberry Water
The House Servant’s Directory
1827
Step One: Squeeze the juice out of the raspberries through a linen cloth – I was stunned to find how much juice came out of a relatively small amount of raspberries. The linen cloth definitely took the brunt of it. I originally thought I would bleach it, but when I saw the extent of the damage, instead I just soaked the rest in raspberry juice and now I have a pink linen dish towel.
Step Two: Put the juice in a glass bottle and place it in the sun until it is “cleared down”. I took this to mean that the sediment would settle at the bottom. I was wrong. The sediment settled at the top. Is that normal?
Step Three: “Pour it gently into another bottle without disturbing the sediment.” I have news for you. When the sediment settles at the top, there’s no way to pour anything without disturbing the sediment. Ultimately I gave up and poured it all in.
Step Four: Add a quart of water for half a pint of juice, and sugar to taste before pouring it “from one vessel to another.” I was very pleased I had pretty glass bottles for this part.
Step Five: Strain it, put it in ice to cool. The straining did absolutely nothing. Didn’t trap any sediment, so it all just went in with the rest, but how bad could that be?
Verdict:
It tasted like. . . raspberry water. Precisely what it was. And if you thought of it as exactly that – flavored water – not some type of juice, then it wasn’t bad. It really was pretty refreshing. We tried adding sparkling water instead, and it didn’t do much. I will say, though, that after it sat for awhile, the sediment settled at the bottom!! I took advantage of that to transfer the water to another bottle, leaving the sediment behind, which made it much prettier.
Have you ever heard of raspberry water? Other than sparkling water, of course.
Forest Idylls 