Cider Cup à la Ensor
Reader ratingsSparkling cider with curaçao, brandy, rock sugar, lemon and a slice of cucumber, poured over shaved ice and served at once: a summer cider cup from 1869, at half quantity.
- Recipe makes
- About 1.2 liters, 6 small glasses
- Prep
- Total
Includes about 30 minutes for the sugar syrup to cool. Chill the cider for a few hours beforehand.
Cider cup in a glass jug with ice and cucumber, and two small stemmed glasses.
The story behind the recipe
A cider cup is a summer party drink of sparkling cider made richer with spirit, sugar and lemon and stretched with ice, and this one comes from William Terrington’s Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (1869). It is the first of the cider cups on his page; he does not say who or what Ensor was. It is alcoholic: by our arithmetic, a 5 percent cider with the brandy and curaçao comes to about 6 percent before the ice goes in, and a little over 5 once some of the ice has melted.
Sugar candy and a slice of cucumber
Terrington’s method is a small syrup first. He pours boiling water on “sugar-candy,” the large crystals sold as rock sugar, along with lemon peel “rubbed on sugar,” so the oil from the skin goes into the sweetening. When that has cooled, in go brandy, the orange liqueur curaçao, the lemon juice and a slice of cucumber. Only then, “in a few minutes,” come the cider and “a quart of shaven ice,” and the order is “use immediately.”
The cider he means is a bottled sparkling one, the kind also sold in those years as champagne cider, and sometimes doctored, as a government chemist found.
Read more about this recipe
Half the cup
Halved, it takes one 750 ml bottle of cider. Use a dry sparkling cider: the syrup supplies the sweetness. For his “brown brandy” any ordinary brandy will do. Shaved or finely crushed ice chills the cup quickly; it also waters it down, so serve it as soon as it is mixed. On a hot afternoon with children at the table, pour them the sparkling apple juice instead. For a wine cup of the same family, there is the Edwardian claret cup.
Cider Cup à la Ensor.—2 bottles of sparkling cider, ½ gill of Curaçoa, ½ gill of brown brandy, ¼lb. of sugar-candy; the juice strained, and the peel of 1 lemon rubbed on sugar; slice of cucumber; pour ½ pint boiling water on the candy when dissolved and cool; add the brandy, cucumber, liqueur, and juice; in a few minutes, add the cider and a quart of shaven ice; use immediately.
Recipe makes: About 1.2 liters, 6 small glasses
Ingredients
For About 1.2 liters, 6 small glasses. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 1.2 liters, 6 small glasses.
- Rock sugar or sugar lumps55 g
- Lemon, unwaxed1
- Boiling water140 ml
- Brandy35 ml
- Orange curaçao35 ml
- Thin slice cucumber1
- Dry sparkling cider, chilled750 ml
- Shaved or finely crushed ice570 ml
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 55 g rock sugar or sugar lumps
- 1 lemon, unwaxed
- 140 ml boiling water
- 35 ml brandy
- 35 ml orange curaçao
- 1 thin slice cucumber
- 750 ml dry sparkling cider, chilled
- 570 ml shaved or finely crushed ice
Equipment
Heatproof jug or bowl
Kettle
Lemon squeezer and small sieve
Large glass jug, about 2 liters
6 small glasses
Instructions
Wash the lemon and rub its whole peel hard against a few lumps of the rock sugar until they turn yellow and smell of lemon. Crush any big crystals, then put all the sugar in a heatproof jug. Cut the lemon in half and keep one half for the juice.
Pour the boiling water over the sugar and stir until it has dissolved; rock sugar is slow. Leave the syrup to cool, about 30 minutes.
Squeeze one lemon half and strain the juice into the cooled syrup.
Pour the syrup into a large glass jug and add the brandy, the orange curaçao and the cucumber slice. Leave for a few minutes.
Just before serving, pour in the dry sparkling cider, add the shaved ice and stir once.
Serve at once in small glasses.
Nutrition
110calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1.2 liters, 6 small glasses
- Servings
- 6
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for sugar, lemon juice and 80-proof brandy, with dry cider and orange curaçao estimated from their alcohol and sugar content.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Terrington’s own cup is twice this size: two bottles of cider and a quart of ice.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Terrington’s quantities halved are one bottle of cider, a quarter gill (35 ml) each of curaçao and brandy, two ounces of sugar candy, a quarter pint (140 ml) of water, the juice of half a lemon and half a quart (570 ml) of shaved ice. We rub the peel of a whole lemon, since half of one is awkward to rub on sugar, so the cup is a little more lemony than his at this size. His bottle of cider was the reputed quart of about 750 ml, the size of a wine bottle today.
The working behind the strength: a 5 percent cider gives about 37 ml of alcohol, the curaçao at 35 percent about 12 ml and the brandy at 40 percent about 14 ml, so about 64 ml in a liter of cup, or 6.3 percent, before the ice. With a third of the ice melted it is about 5.3 percent. A stronger cider raises both figures.
Terrington’s next cider cup ends “withdraw the cucumber, and serve.” If this one stands for more than a few minutes, do the same.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
William Terrington, Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (London: Routledge, 1869), p. 182
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Punches & Cups
- Region
- British
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Summer party
- Season
- Summer