Drinks by theme

What Did People Drink in the 1800s? 19th-Century Drinks and Recipes

What people drank in the 1800s, from period books: switchel and cider at harvest, negus and orgeat at the ball, saloon whiskey and soda-fountain phosphates.

Updated November 1, 2026

Switchel in a tin cup beside a gray stoneware jug, at the edge of a hayfield.

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A tin cup of cloudy amber-brown switchel and a corked gray stoneware jug stand on a split-rail fence beside a mown summer hayfield.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 5 min total

Switchel, the 1856 Harvest Drink

Cold water, molasses, cider vinegar and ground ginger shaken in a jug: the haymakers’ switchel, scaled from the 1856 Harvest Drink to a liter of water.

A heavy cut-glass tumbler of smooth white almond milk stands beside a gray stone mortar with almond paste, a wooden pestle and a corked bottle of colorless orange-flower water on veined marble.

Always alcohol-free

45 min total

Orgeat, Almond Milk with Orange-Flower Water

Almonds pounded with orange-flower water, let down with milk and water, strained and sweetened: the alcohol-free orgeat of Rundell’s 1807 sickroom chapter.

A clear cherry-red phosphate in a straight tumbler set in a nickel holder with a loop handle stands beside a white dish of fresh cherries and a long spoon on black marble before an ochre wall.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 50 min total

Cherry Phosphate, the Soda Fountain Cherry Sour

Fresh cherry syrup, cold soda water and acid phosphate added last, stirred in a short glass: the soda fountain’s cherry sour, after Saxe’s dispensers’ guide of 1894.

What did people drink in the 1800s?

It depended on where you stood. In a Regency ballroom it was tea, lemonade and orgeat, or negus at a private supper. In an American hayfield it was switchel, cold water with molasses and later vinegar and ginger, pressed on haymakers from at least 1805 in place of the rum that usually went out to the field. When the apples came in, the drink was cider.

In the West it was whiskey at two bits a glass (about $8.30 today, by US consumer prices) and black coffee on the trail. By the end of the century the soda fountain, which began as chemists’ imitation of medicinal spring water, was selling phosphates and ice cream sodas, and Klondike gold rushers were paying gold-rush prices for coffee, tea and cocoa.

Most recipes here come from sources of the century, from Regency cookbooks to the 1862 and 1887 bar books and the soda-fountain manuals; a few are later or our own alcohol-free versions, and each page says which. The alcohol-free drinks are marked.

What did people drink at harvest in the 1800s?

Switchel in the hayfield and cider when the apples came in. Cider was “sweet” while it was fresh juice and “hard” once it had fermented, and in 1840 a barrel of hard cider became one of the emblems of a presidential campaign.

The haymakers’ jug and the cider barrel are in What Did Early Americans Drink at Harvest?.

What did people drink at a Regency ball?

At Almack’s, the London assembly everyone wanted to get into, the refreshment room by 1820 served tea, lemonade and orgeat, with no supper and no wine. Private balls gave a supper with wine, soup and negus, warm port and water sweetened with sugar and lemon.

The ballroom, the supper and the ratafia of the novels are in What Did People Drink in the Regency?.

A white china jug of ruby-red negus with four lemon slices stands with its lid, a whole nutmeg and four stemmed glasses on a pewter tray over white damask.

Hot Drinks · 30 min total

Port Wine Negus, Hot Port with Lemon and Nutmeg

A bottle of hot ruby port poured into a covered jug of lemon sugar, sliced lemons, a little spice and a quart of boiling water, then grated over with nutmeg: negus as Oxford made it in 1847.

What did people drink in the Old West?

Whiskey, poured straight in the saloon, and black boiled coffee on the trail, at the stage stations and in the cow camps. A traveler who wanted something cold could stir up lemonade from citric acid and sugar.

The saloon, the trail and the soda works are in Wild West Drinks.

Pale yellow lemonade in a half-full heavy tumbler beside an open jar of lemonade powder and a tin spoon on a weathered wagon tailboard, with canvas and sunny grassland behind.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 5 min total

Lemonade Powders, the Trail Lemonade of 1862

Sugar, citric acid and a few drops of lemon oil, mixed dry and kept in a jar, then stirred into cold water by the teaspoon: Jerry Thomas’s lemonade powders of 1862.

Was the soda fountain a pharmacy?

In part it was. American soda water began as chemists’ imitation of medicinal spring water, and a manual written for druggists in 1897 still wanted headache salts kept within reach of the fountain.

The druggist’s counter is in Was the Soda Fountain a Pharmacy?.

What did the Klondike gold rushers drink?

Coffee and tea on the trail, cocoa when they could pay for it, and whiskey that was weak, watered and dear. When the whiskey ran short in Dawson they distilled their own from sourdough and sugar and called it “hootch.”

Tappan Adney’s prices, from his winter in Dawson, are in Hootch, 50-Cent Coffee and $40 Champagne.

Light brown cocoa with small bubbles fills a white breakfast cup on a saucer with a cocoa-dusted teaspoon, beside a white bowl of cocoa powder and a small white sugar pot on a pine table by a winter window.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 7 min total

Breakfast Cocoa the 1886 Way, Half Milk and Half Water

Cocoa powder worked to a paste with a spoonful of boiling water, then made up with equal parts of boiling water and boiled milk: the breakfast cocoa of a Massachusetts chocolate maker’s 1886 booklet, at the center of an 1898 lawsuit.

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