Elizabeth Ellicott Lea's Cordial recipe was included in her slim first edition of 1845 and the enlarged 1846 and 1851 editions (reprinted for 40 years). Her Peach Cordial required peaches, sugar, brandy, mace and blanched peach kernels. Born in 1793 in Ellicott City, Maryland, Lea included many peach recipes, which have been great, as have her other recipes. I have not made a cake flavored with her Peach Cordial, yet.
Other cookbook authors from about the same time period and region had slightly different recipes. Maryland: Howard - white whiskey and clarify syrup with egg white; Tyson - boil down peach pieces and sugar to thick syrup, brandy. Virginia: Randolph - peach brandy, brown sugar. Philadelphia: Leslie - rock candy sugar, peaches, kernels, and double-rectified whiskey.
Put in a gallon of peach brandy into a wide mouthed vessel, and five pounds of fine flavored peaches, cut from the stone; boil five pints of water with two pounds of loaf-sugar and a pound of peaches, till it is a clear and rich syrup; pour this boiling hot on the brandy and stir it well; put in two dozen peach kernels, blanched and pounded, and a little mace; let it stand three weeks covered tight; at the end of which time, bottle it for use; it is a nice seasoning for cake.
Lea, Elizabeth Ellicott. Domestic Cookery. Baltimore: 1845
PEACH CORDIAL 1828 VA
GATHER ripe cling-stone peaches, wipe off the down, cut them to the stone in several places, and put them in a cask; when filled with peaches, pour on as much peach brandy as the cask will hold; let it stand six or eight weeks, then draw it off, put in water until reduced to the strength of wine; to each gallon of this, add one pound of good brown sugar - dissolve it, and pour the cordial into a cask just large enough to hold it - when perfectly clear, it is fit for use.
Randolph, Mary. Virginia Housewife: Or, Methodical Cook. Baltimore: 1828 (1824 1st ed)
PEACH CORDIAL 1832 PA
Take a peck of cling-stone peaches; such as come late in the season, and are very juicy. Pare them, and cut them from the stones. Crack about half the stones and save the kernels. Leave the remainder of the stones whole, and mix them with the cut peaches; add also the kernels. Put the whole into a wide-mouthed demi-john, and pour on them two gallons of double-rectified whiskey. Add three pounds of rock-sugar candy. Cork it tightly, and set it a way for three months: then bottle it, and it will be fit for use. This cordial is as clear as water, and nearly equal to noyau. ["Noyau. A liquor flavoured with the kernels of peach stones." Ure’s]
Leslie, Eliza. Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats. 4th ed. Phila: 1832
PEACH CORDIAL 1856 PA
In preserving there is generally more syrup than is required for the preserves; to every pint of syrup add half a pint of good brandy; stir this well together and bottle and cork tightly; this is very nice diluted with water for summer.
Cookery as it Should be Practical housekeeper by pupil of Mrs. Goodfellow. Phila: 1856
CLARET PEACH CORDIAL. 1870 MD
1 pound of peaches, pared and cut up; sprinkle over them 1 pound of sugar, and let them stand for 2 hours; boil them until they are a rich syrup; then strain them, and add brandy to taste, and bottle.
Tyson, M.L. The Queen of the Kitchen: A Collection of Southern Cooking. Baltimore: 1870
PEACH CORDIAL 1873 MD
Blanch as many kernels of peach stones as you may require, and put them in the best white whiskey. Let them stand six weeks. Then add one pound of sugar to a pint of the liquor.
Make a rich syrup of the sugar, and clarify it as in mint cordial. [Make the syrup by boiling sugar and water, throwing in the white of egg, and removing the scum as it rises.]
Howard, Jane Grant Gilmor. Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen. Baltimore 1873
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