sound claret to the basting
liquor. Leave unbasted for ten minutes before taking up, so the skin may
be properly crisp.

[Illustration: _For Thirsty Souls_]

_Grandmother's Cherry Bounce_: Rinse a clean, empty whiskey barrel well
with cold water, drain, and fill with very ripe Morello cherries, mixed
with black wild cherries. One gallon wild cherries to five of Morellos
is about the proper proportion. Strew scantly through the cherries,
blade mace, whole cloves, allspice, a very little bruised ginger, and
grated nutmeg. Add to a full barrel of fruit twenty pounds of sugar--or
in the proportion of half a pound to the gallon of fruit. Cover the
fruit an inch deep with good corn whiskey, the older and milder the
better. Leave out the bung but cover the opening with lawn. Let stand
six months undisturbed in a dry, airy place, rather warm. Rack off into
a clean barrel, let stand six months longer, then bottle or put in
demijohns. This improves greatly with age up to the fifth year--after
that the change is unappreciable.

_Grape Cider_: Fill a clean, tight, well-scalded barrel with ripe wild
grapes picked from their stems. Add spices if you like, but they can be
left out. Fill the vessel with new cider, the sweeter the better. There
should be room left to ferment. Cover the bung-hole with thin cloth and
let stand in dry air four to six months. Rack off and bottle. This also
improves with age. It is a drink to be used with caution--mild as May in
the mouth, but heady, and overcoming, especially to those unused to its
seductions.

_Persimmon Beer_: The poor relation of champagne--with the advantage
that nobody is ever the worse for drinking it. To make it, take
full-ripe persimmons, the juicier the better, free them of stalks and
calyxes, then mash thoroughly, and add enough wheat bran or middlings
to make a stiffish dough. Form the dough into thin, flat cakes, which
bake crisp in a slow oven. When cold break them up in a clean barrel,
and fill it with filtered rainwater. A bushel of persimmons before
mashing will make a barrel of beer. Set the barrel upright, covered with
a thin cloth, in a warm, dry place, free of taints. Let stand until the
beer works--the persimmon cakes will rise and stand in a foamy mass on
top. After three to four weeks, either move the barrel to a cold place,
or rack off the beer into bottles or demijohns, tieing down the corks,
and keeping the bottled stuff very cool. The more meaty and f