Lime Cordial

Lime Cordial
© Denzil Green

Contents hide

1 Cooking Tips
2 Substitutes
3 History Notes
4 Literature & Lore

Lime Cordial is a non-alcoholic syrup made from lime juice concentrate, and sugar.

Rose’s brand is owned by Coca Cola.

Rose’s Lime Cordial is called “Rose’s Lime Juice” in America. It was sold as “Cordial” in Canada up until around 2005, when they switched to the American wording. A few years after that, they switched back to the “Cordial” name.

In Canada, Rose’s is handled by the Mott’s Division of Cadbury Beverages. Canadian ingredients are water, sugar, concentrated lime juice, citric acid, natural flavours, sodium metabisuphite, colours.

It is still called Lime Cordial in the UK.

Another well-known brand is Belvoir.

Cooking Tips

Mix up 3 or 4 parts of water or carbonated water to 1 part lime cordial.

Substitutes

Freshly-squeezed lime juice with sugar.

Nutrition Facts Per 100 ml / 3.5 oz (made up from 20ml of cordial and 80ml of water)
		Amount
Calories		90
Carbohydrate		5 g

History Notes

Rose’s Lime Cordial was created by Lauchlin Rose in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1867. He took out a British patent on his method of preserving lime juice.

In the same year, ships in both the Royal and British Merchant Navies were required to provide lime juice daily to sailors (to prevent scurvy.)

Other historic brands were Lamplough’s Lime Juice Syrup, Montserrat Lime Fruit Juice, and Feltoe’s Lime Juice Cordial.

Literature & Lore

“Lime juice by L. Rose and Company, Ltd., of London, is made again after a wartime suspension. Remember the bottles with the entwined lime branches, the gold, yellow, and green label? Remember the refreshing flavor that the pale green juice imparted to summer drinks? And use it in recipes for jellied salads, in frozen desserts, in luscious cream pies, wherever lime juice is needed. But take it easy when you splash in the juice. This flavoring is the filtered juice of crushed tree-ripened fruit and is extra full-bodied.

The making of the product starts on the Island of Dominica in the British West Indies where the Rose firm has its lime groves which blossom and bear the year round. At the mill the fruit is crushed between granite rollers, and juice, pulp, and essential oil turned into wax-lined oak casks for shipment to England. At the London plant this is stored in 12,000-gallon oak tanks and allowed to rest until the pulp and essential oils rise to the top. Then the pure lime juice is drained off, filtered, bottled, and ready for distribution in the world’s fine food shops.” — Paddleford, Clementine (1898 – 1967). Food Flashes Column. Gourmet Magazine. August 1948.