Spruce beer: I’d like to locate the spruce elements needed for the following recipe, then make the thing.
Take four ounces of hops, let them boil half an hour in one gallon of water, strain the hop water then add sixteen gallons of warm water, two gallons of molasses, eight ounces of essence of spruce, dissolved in one quart of water, put it in a clean cask, then shake it well together, add half a pint of emptins*, then let it stand and work one week, if very warm weather less time will do, when it is drawn off to bottle, add one spoonful of molasses to every bottle.
*emptins: “a mixture of hops and the dregs of beer or cider casks”–that I can come up with…