Skip to main content
Drink

Lime-water to Make

A beverage made by steeping unslaked lime in water and filtering the clear liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Lime-water to Make

Ingredients

Directions

Slake the lime

  1. Place the unslaked lime in an earthen pot.

  2. Slowly pour a little water onto the lime while stirring with a stick.

  3. Continue adding water gradually to avoid splattering.

Settle and store

  1. After 3-4 hours, when the lime has settled, pour off the clear liquid.

  2. Store the liquid in stoppered bottles away from light.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Unslaked lime
Reacts with water to form calcium hydroxide, which dissolves to make the clear, alkaline liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the water gradually. Water reacting with unslaked lime releases heat and can boil and spatter violently. Adding small amounts slowly keeps the reaction controlled and lets the lime slake evenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More lime water recipes

You might also like