Liqueurs et boissons d'autrefois

This collection of homemade liqueurs, aperitifs, digestifs, eau-de-vie, and other drinks is the work of Elisabeth Boutte, a French author who has written extensively about traditional and regional recipes.

There are more than 70 recipes here, ranging from an elderberry syrup to a walnut liqueur to a rosemary elixir. The book’s design, featuring text which appears to have been handwritten, suggests an old-fashioned kitchen notebook, but there is very little in the way of historical context or explanation of from whom these recipes were derived.

That said, for most recipes the production requires little in the way of special equipment, allowing them to be prepared at a small scale in home kitchens, just as one imagines a householder of the nineteenth century might have done.

Hardcover. 64 pages. In French.