When Harriet Smith is has a cold, Mr. Elton reports that she was given a cordial. When Mr. Knightley is giving instructions on how to make spruce beer, Mr. Elton breaks his pencil. When Louisa Musgrove has fallen in Lyme, she is taken back to the house and given cordials and restoratives. When Marianne Dashwood takes ill at Cleveland, she is prescribed and administered cordials. When Fanny Price received a letter from Edmund that he was coming to Portsmouth to take her back to Mansfield, she wanted a cordial. Nowhere in her novels does Jane Austen specifically mention the stillroom, but each of these references reminds us that the households of the Georgian Era, at least those of the upper and middle classes, produced such concoctions as cordials and spruce beer. These would be the products of the stillroom.
Management of the stillroom (or still room, or still-room) was one of the core skills expected of the mistress of a household, and mothers trained their daughters in the finer points of how the stillroom was run. In great households, such as what Pemberley would have been, the housekeeper might take on that role, with the assistance of stillroom maids – one of the higher rungs in the maid hierarchy.
The stillroom was essentially a secondary kitchen where preserves, beverages, cosmetics, soaps, and medicines, etc. were prepared. The room was intentionally kept apart from the bustle of regular meal preparation and was equipped with various types of equipment. A tin-lined copper still was requisite, as was a work table, knives, and a mortar and pestle. A good supply of bottles, jars, pottery, tins, racks, etc. would be key to storing whatever was produced. Most stillrooms had their own stove and oven.
The name is derived from the initial purpose of the stillroom, which was as a small-scale distillery for household consumption and use. In the stillroom, under careful supervision, essences, aromatic waters, and specialty liqueurs were created. Essences, in our modern vernacular, are essential oils, which followed differing processes depending on the plant, but in general, plants such as herbs or flowers are ground or macerated, mixed with water, and gently heated to allow the plant oils to separate and float to the top where they were concentrated into a special vase. Aromatic waters were produced in a similar fashion, with the fragrant water being the desired product. Lavender, rose petals, orange flowers, and elderflowers were used to create floral aromatic waters, while herbs such as rosemary, peppermint, marjoram, dill, caraway, thyme, and fennel were used for other fragrances.
The Irish satirist, Jonathan Swift once said:
There is no nation yet known in either hemisphere where the people of all conditions are more in want of some cordial to keep up their spirits than in this of ours.
Judging by the variety of liqueurs produced in stillrooms, I can see what he means. I won’t give you an exhaustive list, but here are a few fun or interesting ones: Absinthe, Clove Cordial, Green Chartreuse, Lemon Cordial, Balm of Molucca, Cherry Brandy, Crême de Cacao, Ginger Brandy, Sighs of Love, Rum Shrub, Sloe Gin, and Vermouth.
This post covered just a handful of the products of the stillroom. My next few posts will cover some of the other things our predecessors on this planet had to produce for themselves in that room. Just for fun, I’ll leave you with a couple of non-alcoholic “miscellaneous” recipes useful to household management back in the day.
To destroy the Smell of Paint in Rooms.—Place in each room a pail of water in which two or three handfuls of hay are immersed. At the end of six hours, the hay will have absorbed much of the smell of the paint. Burn the hay, throw away the water, and repeat the process as often as required.
To destroy Flies.—Take half a tea-spoonful of freshly ground black pepper, a tea-spoonful of brown sugar, and a tea-spoonful of cream. Mix all well together, and put it on a plate. The flies in the room will soon disappear.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I want some Sighs of Love, and then curl up with some of my TBR pile. 🙂
LOL! That sounds lovely! One Sighs of Love cordial, coming up 😉
In the P&P stories I read there is quite often reference to making perfumes and medicines in the still room.
Obviously it’s quite complicated really and reading this I’m now not surprised that my childhood attempts to make perfume by putting rose petals in bottles of water didn’t actually work!
Thank you.
I’ve read a few like that recently too. The modern Scents and Sensibility even has Marianne being extremely talented as a perfumer.
Very interesting article! Thank you!
Thanks, Jean. I’m glad you found it interesting. I’m fascinated by this sort of thing!
Interesting! I never knew much about stipulations before! I may try the method to get rid of flies!
Interestingly, there are still some hotels that maintain their stillroom, often used for producing the proprietary formulas they’re famous for. I guess if you don’t outsource it, it’s harder for someone to make off with the recipe! As for that fly method, it’s worth a try. Those pesky flies!
I didn’t realize what a stillroom was before. Thanks for sharing this informative post.
It’s truly a foreign concept to most of us – most of what was produced in the stillroom can be acquired over the internet now or picked up at the grocery, health food, or liquor store. A few exotic items may require a specialty store, but spices, sundries, and the like are comparatively easy nowadays. I’m glad you enjoyed the post.
Love J W & Regina’s posts, especially J W’s scene!
Have you personally tried the fly recipe? It would be great if it actually works. Might be better than hanging a plastic bag of water in the doorway but cream?
I have not tried the fly recipe, but my husband (who is an exterminator) got a good laugh from it.
I don’t remember anyone in the family discussing cordials. However, my father told the story of his mother lining up all the kids for their spring ‘dosing’ of castor oil. Ugh!
I have read a few JAFF stories where Jane was proficient in the stillroom. With Elizabeth’s enjoyment of being outdoors, I’m sure she was always bringing plants home for Jane. I’ve also read stories where Jane and Elizabeth created their own signature fragrances in the Longbourn stillroom. I wonder if Caroline Bingley would ever know what that room was? Not likely. I doubt her seminary held classes on the properties of the stillroom? LOL!
Oh, I just had a thought… even I know you have to be careful distilling something. Scene: Caroline is mad at Elizabeth after their discussion of the things an estate mistress should know how to do. Caroline storms into the Netherfield stillroom and, in her tirade, dismisses the servant. She then starts throwing things around, messes with containers, mixes unknown things in a bowl, and neglects what is already brewing/stewing/cooking and, of course, it blows up. Yep. That’s our Caroline.
This was an interesting post. Thanks for sharing.
Haha! I love your scene. It has all sorts of comedic potential (and tragic). I’ll have to let my thoughts on it simmer for a while. 😉
If you watch ‘Big Bang Theory’ or have seen the commercial… you’ll recognize the reference. Sheldon saved Leonard from the smoldering container of rocket fuel by putting it in the elevator, punching a button, and closing the door. Seconds later it exploded. Thus the reason the elevator doesn’t work.
After a maid alerts the house to potential trouble, Elizabeth calmly walks into the stillroom, raises a window, grabs a smoldering something, and throws it out. Thus saving Caroline and Netherfield from a potential disaster or fire [something about to reach flashpoint]. I would think Darcy would be impressed. LOL!! You just don’t see many scenes with the stillroom in JAFF. LOL!
Love TBBT! And yes, I’m sure there were occasional mishaps–and misdeeds–in the actual stillrooms and they may make some great fodder for scenes. I actually decided on the topic of this post while researching stillrooms for my WIP.
This post had me singing, “A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down in a most delightful way.”
Tee Hee – I’m sure some of the stillroom concoctions were nasty, although many sound positively addictive!