Fit for a king: an aristocratic Irish collection of manuscript recipes and remedies from the late 17th and early 18th centuries which includes two original recipes for ‘Uscabaugh’ - the water of life in Gaelic - or whisky as it became in English. The first of these is attributed to ‘Dr Fennell’, likely the Irish Dr Gerald Fennell, which would make this a 17th century manuscript whisky recipe, a rarity indeed. Almost too poetically, the second whisky recipe concludes with Ireland’s national symbol named as the final ingredient - the Irish whisky recipe requires the addition of ‘a few shameroughs [shamrocks] all a little bruised’.
Compiled on the Kildare estate of Sir Edward Stratford (1664-1740) the manuscript was probably begun shortly after his first marriage in the 1680s to Elizabeth Baisley. It was then that the Stratfords queasily entertained King James II and shortly afterwards, in 1690, King William III too was received at Belan. Is it too much to wonder if the dishes that he ate and the whisky that he drank derived from this document? However it is the second Mrs Stratford, Penelope, who left her name on the manuscript. She too came from a well-connected Kildare family, the Eustaces of Castlemartin (her great uncle was an Irish Lord Chancellor), and was first married to the MP Robert Echlin and in 1706 wed Edward Stratford himself. Many of these recipes are attributed to the couple’s Irish gentry friends as well as including recipes added towards the close of the manuscript which derive from Penelope Stratford’s birth family (‘A Water for the Face - Lady Eustace’) and even her late husband’s family (‘For Bloodshed Eyes Mrs Echlin’). Other contributions to the manuscript are credited to Lady Hemon, the Countess of Drogheda, Lady Dunganon, ‘Lady Dunigall’, Mrs Perse, Lady Powerscourt, and Sir Patrick Dunn, President of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland. Altogether a remarkable document.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Small quarto (17x20.5cm) bound in panelled calf, spine recently renewed and corners strengthened. A lock is present on the lower board although the strap which would have made the book lockable is now absent. On the front pastedown is written in an early hand: ‘good Mr Stratford’. On the final pastedown, ‘Penelope Stratford Her Cook [Book] 1720’ and ‘Penelope S’ below along with penmanship and calculations. The manuscript begins on page 2 which has a tissue repair; the first leaf is assumed to be missing. Stratford has paginated for a few leaves only but her manuscript continues over 286 closely written pages, with only around 15 blanks - c75,000 words and c500 recipes. There seem to be two hands, often divided between a slightly earlier hand on the rectos - possibly Elizabeth Stratford’s - and Penelope Stratford’s own, on the versos, though this pattern is gradually complicated through the manuscript. Stratford was 60 in 1720 when she recorded her ownership inscription on the book - perhaps she felt she had been mistress of Belan long enough to assert herself thus. A few blanks have been filled in by an early 19th century writer who notes of Stratford’s hand: ‘this writing is as old as the time of which it was written. Georgina Gill’s old Book February 5th 1820’
WHISKY: The first recipe appears in the final quarter of the manuscript in the context of remedies and preserves. Named ‘Dr Fennells Usquebagh’ the recipe runs to 3 page in length and begins with ‘Primrose flowers, a p[oun]d of anaseeds fann’d cleane pick’t & dry’d before ye fire rub’d well from their stalks, & grossly bruis’d’ as well as lilly of the valley, rosewood and borage and 12 pounds of ‘Cittron sticks as thin as possible Strung with a needle on a very long thread so long as may hang into ye middle of ye barrel.’
Over the second and final page the recipe sets out a remarkable range of additional ingredients to flavour the liquor, instructing at one point: ‘Put ye Ambergreece into a glass Jarr yt will hold 12 quarts; pour some of ye distilled Usquebagh upon it, till Ye Jarr is full within a quart, corke it up close & tie a bladder over ye corke that no air may yet get in, let it infuse without heating for twelve days…’ This appears to be a serious undertaking with the assurance that ‘a barrel and halfe of Spirits of Mault will make a barrel of good Strong Usquabagh, less will make do if you use the rectified Spirit of wine for ye infusion.’ The recipe concludes that ‘you are to take eight spoonfuls twice or thrice a day’. The second recipe runs to two and a quarter pages, appears slightly less exotic in its ingredients though it does conclude, poetically, with the additions of ‘a few shameroughs all a little bruised’
RECIPES & RECEIPTS: The manuscript opens with a sequence of cake recipes that include ‘Madam Bagnod’s Cake’ and ‘Sattin Biskats’, ‘Lady Hamon’s Cake’ and ‘Of Lady Forterens way to preserve Green pear plums...’, ‘Lady Hammars way to preserve chinay oringes or others’. There are contributions from Mrs Byrne, ‘The Lady Owens Red Powder’ and from Mary Cole, Countess Drogheda (d1724) ‘To make Cashoue Drops Lady Mary Colly’. There are numerous recipes for wines as well as ‘A Diet Drink’ before the manuscript morphs into medical territory with ‘The Lady Poorescourt’s receipt for a Cancer in the breast’ (Lady Powerscourt, nee Eleanor Gore), ‘The Lady Dunganon’s Receipt for the Scurvy, ‘Basilikon or the Royall Ointment for a burn’ and ‘The Best Receipt Extant that ever was for the plague’. Pickling includes the intriguing instructions ‘To pickle Puffins’, ‘To make a Seed cake Lady Norris’s way’ and ‘Water for a Consumption, Lady Dunigall’ Mrs Milborne contributes ‘Lieutenant E Brereton’s Sauce for Fish’ with numerous recipes from Mrs Brereton and Mrs Broderick, Mrs Perse and Mrs Plunkett. From John Radcliffe (1653-1714, physician to Princess Anne) comes ‘The Bran Water Dr Ratcliff’, ‘The Powders. Doctor Ratcliff’, ‘The Electuary’ and ‘Dr Ratcliffes Diet Drink for Consumption’.
