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 home37–48 of 228 recipes
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Always alcohol-freeAlbany Breakfast Tea with Sugar in the Mouth, 1749
Black tea without milk, drunk with a small lump of sugar held in the mouth: breakfast tea as a Swedish visitor saw the Dutch of Albany take it in 1749.
Buttered Beer, the Tudor Recipe of 1594
Hot beer thickened with egg yolks, sweetened, spiced with nutmeg, cloves and ginger and finished with sweet butter: buttered beer from a 1594 English cookbook.
Canadian Spruce Beer from a French Book of 1755
Spruce branches boiled until the bark slips, roasted oats and toast, molasses and beer yeast: spruce beer as Canada made it, printed in Paris in 1755, at one gallon.
Always alcohol-freeChocolate in Milk with Egg Yolks, a 1652 Breakfast Cup
Grated chocolate frothed into boiling milk with two egg yolks and sugar: the 1652 breakfast cup from the earliest English chocolate book we know of.
Always alcohol-freeCoffee-Shop Kopi with Condensed Milk, Singapore 1933
Jet-black coffee poured over a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk, left for the drinker to stir until it turns light brown: the four-cent coffee-shop cup of 1933 Singapore.
Always alcohol-freeCurrant Syrup and Water, a Dutch Cooler of 1669
Red currant juice boiled with sugar to a thin syrup, three parts to two, and stirred into cold water: a thirst-quencher from an Amsterdam book of 1669.
George Washington’s Small Beer from His 1757 Notebook
Bran and hops boiled three hours, strained onto molasses and worked a week: the small beer in the notebook George Washington kept as a Virginia colonel in 1757.
Always alcohol-freeIsland Chocolate Frothed with a Fresh Egg, Martinique 1722
Grated cacao, sugar, cinnamon and a whole fresh egg, worked into boiling water and milled to a thick froth: chocolate as the French islands made it, from Labat’s 1722 account.
Kandeel, the Dutch Hot Wine with Eggs of 1669
Rhenish wine and water thickened with beaten eggs and spiced with mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves: kandeel from an Amsterdam cookbook of 1669.
Always alcohol-freePineapple Cup with Rock Sugar, Singapore 1915
Fresh pineapple juice with soda or plain water, a little crushed rock sugar and thin slices of lemon: a hot-weather drink printed in Singapore in 1915.
Proulx’s Old-Fashioned Cocktail, the 1888 Recipe
Sugar dissolved in the glass, bitters, absinthe, lemon peel, one chunk of ice and whiskey: the first recipe printed as an Old-fashioned Cocktail, Chicago, 1888.
Sang-Gris, Labat’s Madeira Sangaree from the French Islands
Madeira steeped with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, clove, plenty of nutmeg and a crust of dark toast, then strained: the English drink the French islands copied, from Labat’s 1722 account.
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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.