Recipes
Drinks from the old books, with and without alcohol. Each one names its source and scales to the size of your party.
Drinks from the old books.
Or start from what you have at home193–204 of 228 recipes
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Alcohol-free versionCheaut, Hot Almond Milk from a Medieval Kitchen
Blanched almonds ground with water, strained, boiled once and sweetened with sugar and salt: the fifteenth-century almond caudle made without the ale.
Clarrey, Medieval Honeyed Spiced Wine
White wine with clarified honey, ginger and cinnamon, run through a strainer: one documented form of clarrey, the medieval spiced wine akin to hippocras.
Alcohol-free versionClear Saloop with Lemon Peel
Boiling water stirred onto arrowroot with a strip of lemon peel until clear and lightly thick, then sweetened: the 1812 cookery-book saloop, made without its wine.
Always alcohol-freeCoffee-Tavern Coffee at a Penny a Cup
Fresh-ground coffee steeped fifteen minutes in boiling water, strained, then sweetened with Demerara and hot milk: the urn coffee an 1878 manual costed at a penny a cup.
Always alcohol-freeCoffee-Tavern Tea, Steeped Ten Minutes
China black tea and Assam steeped exactly ten minutes, poured off the leaves, sweetened in the pot and given a spoonful of milk: tea from an 1878 coffee-tavern manual.
Always alcohol-freeColmenero’s Spiced Chocolate, Frothed with Hot Water
Chocolate cakes ground with chile, aniseed, cinnamon, vanilla and nuts, then frothed into hot water: a Spanish physician’s recipe, printed in London in 1685.
Conditum Paradoxum, Roman Spiced Honey Wine
The first recipe in the Roman cookbook of Apicius: honey boiled with wine, then steeped with pepper, saffron, bay and mastic resin.
Always alcohol-freeDefrutum Cooler, Roman Grape Syrup and Water
Grape juice boiled down to half its volume into the Romans’ defrutum, then stirred into cold water: a dark, sweet, alcohol-free grape drink.
Always alcohol-freeDufour’s Coffee, Boiled with a Little Sugar
A third of a spoonful of fine coffee a head, boiled briefly with a little sugar and sipped scalding from small cups: coffee as a 1685 handbook made it.
Always alcohol-freeFresh Orangeade, Juice, Sugar and Water
Orange rind steeped in hot syrup, fresh orange juice and cold water: the real orangeade a 1921 state chemist demanded, from a 1924 London drinks book.
Always alcohol-freeGinger Ale Punch for a Dry Party
Weak tea, sugar, orange and lemon juice over a block of ice, topped with ginger ale and sparkling water at the last minute: a Prohibition party punch.
Always alcohol-freeGrape Juice Highball, the Prohibition Soft Drink
A cup of purple grape juice, a teaspoon of syrup, a little cracked ice and a top of soda water: the highball as a 1920 temperance hostess served it.
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Absinthe Frappé, Shaken until the Shaker Frosts
A pony of absinthe and a pony of water with a dash of anisette, shaken with fine ice until the shaker frosts, strained and topped with seltzer: the absinthe frappé of 1895.
Absinthium Romanum, Roman Wormwood Wine
Apicius’s Roman vermouth: mild white wine steeped for a day with wormwood, mastic, bay and saffron, unsweetened and bitter by design.
Always alcohol-freeAdynamon, Pliny’s Wine Without Strength
White grape must boiled with half its volume of water until the water is gone: the Roman ‘wine’ given to people who were not allowed wine. Alcohol-free.