Prune Tincture

Twenty-five pounds of prune kernels macerated in alcohol, as a stock brandy flavouring.

From: The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer
Published: 1863
Yikes Scale: Call poison control

Exactly as printed, 1863

*** It is absolutely necessary to have a tub with a clear surface-bed of 14 inches charcoal, to insure a perfect rectification. After rectification, high wine is called spirit, and this spirit when again distilled is called French or Cologne spirit. (See page 17.) Tincture of St. John's Bread.

Mash or cut in small pieces 16 lbs. beans, and let them infuse 3 days in 4 gals. water. Stir twice or more a day. This has a tendency to extract the sugar from the beans. Then rack off and put the tincture in a barrel. After this operation, pour over the beans 4 gals. spirit, 95 per cent., to extract the oil, let it infuse 8 days, then add spirit, tincture and beans to the first tincture.

Let it settle, and use the tincture according to prescription for Rum, Bourbon Whiskey; also for Cognac Brandy, in the proportion of one quart for 40 gals. liquor.

ANOTHER WAY TO PREPARE THE ABOVE TINCTURE.

Cut 16 lbs. St. John's Bread in small pieces, pour over 8 gals. spirit, 50 per cent., say proof, let infuse 10 days at least, stir every day twice or more, and use the tincture according to prescription. (See page 65.) Prune Tincture.

Mash 1 box, say 25 lbs., prunes, stones, kernels, the whole together. Pour over 5 gals. French spirit, proof. Let infuse 15 days at least before using the tincture, according to prescription for Brandy. Stir every day.

The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer, 1863. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Proof spirit is half water, and fifteen days is ample time to draw the amygdalin-bearing fraction out of crushed kernels. That is the same chemistry as every bitter-almond recipe on this site, at industrial weight.

The book then sends you to a dilution prescription elsewhere in the volume. Without an assay there is no way to know what concentration you have made, and there was no assay.

Notes from the 21st century

Benzaldehyde is the intended product. The noyau note. It arrives inseparably alongside the hydrogen cyanide, which is the recurring problem with the whole genre.
Twenty-five pounds is a batch, not a bottle. This is stock flavouring for a manufactory, to be let down into many barrels of finished spirit.
Modern producers assay. Where kernel liqueurs are still made commercially, cyanide content is measured and capped by regulation.

Also in this book

Imitation gin with ethers and acid — Nitric ether, acetic ether, sulphuric acid, and a quarter-pound of mashed prune kernels.
Oil of Cognac from fusel oil — Brandy flavour distilled from the pressed lees of wine, with oil of vitriol by the half-pound.
Sparkle-fining with sugar of lead — A trade manual describes clearing cloudy liquor with lead salts — and names it a pernicious practice.

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Prune Tincture

Exactly as printed, 1863

So what happens if I make it?

Notes from the 21st century

Also in this book

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