Dry January Drinks From History

What did people drink instead of alcohol?

Water first, in every century, and around it a long line of drinks made without alcohol on purpose. Romans drank vinegar and honey drinks, medieval households whey and almond milk, Georgians barley water and orgeat, and the temperance movement filled coffee taverns and soda fountains with drinks meant to keep working people out of the pub.

Some were for health. Pliny counted oxymel, honey boiled with vinegar, among the drinks Romans used as medicine, and a wine without strength, boiled from grape must, was given to people who were not allowed real wine. Some were for work: from at least 1805, American farm papers pressed switchel of molasses and water on haymakers in place of rum.

Many were for principle. In 1839 Sarah Josepha Hale told American housewives never to make a drink with alcohol in it for family use, and in Victorian Britain the coffee taverns sold cocoa, coffee and tea at a penny a cup from five in the morning. In the United States, the soda fountain made the alcohol-free sour with acid phosphate, and in 1920 a hostess’s guide filed its fruit drinks under “Non-Alcoholic Cocktails.”

A few drinks sold as non-alcoholic were brewed with yeast and held a little alcohol, and those are labeled low-alcohol and kept off this page. Every drink here is alcohol-free. Most come straight from a book of their time; the modern adaptations, such as the bread kvass, say so.