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 home61–72 of 228 recipes
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Always alcohol-freeTreacle Posset, Hot Milk Turned with Black Treacle
Boiling milk turned with black treacle and strained into a glass: a hot, dark, sweet whey from the sick-room lessons of an 1877 London cookery school.
Always alcohol-freeCider-Flip, Sweet Cider and Lemon for a 1903 Halloween Party
Fresh sweet apple cider in a tall pitcher with lemon slices and the juice of three lemons, served with straws, or hot on a cold night: the drink of a 1903 Halloween party book.
Always alcohol-freeLambswool with Milk, Roasted Apples Beaten into Hot Milk
The soft pulp of roasted apples beaten into hot milk with nutmeg, ginger and sugar: the milk lambswool of an Irish Halloween, from a 1784 letter.
Always alcohol-freePrune Kompot for a Polish Christmas Eve, from 1913
Dried plums cooked soft with sugar and cinnamon: the prune kompot of a 1913 Polish-Lithuanian cookbook, served then as a dessert and poured today as a drink at Christmas Eve supper.
Always alcohol-freeSok Żurawinowy, Cranberry Syrup for Tea from 1885
Whole cranberries boiled until they burst, the juice left to clear and then cooked with sugar into a thin, bright syrup for a glass of hot tea: the sok żurawinowy of Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa’s Warsaw household book of 1885.
Alcohol-free versionAlcohol-Free Bread Kvass with Lemon and Mint
Dried rye bread and fresh mint steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle and sharpened with lemon, then lifted with soda water: Molokhovets’s 1887 kvass made without yeast.
Alcohol-free versionAlcohol-Free Hot Buttered Cider with Allspice and Cloves
Jerry Thomas’s 1862 hot spiced rum without the rum: sweet apple cider heated with whole allspice and cloves, finished with a piece of butter melting on top.
Alcohol-free versionAlcohol-Free Tea Punch, Green Tea, Lemon and Sugar
The green tea, lump sugar rubbed on lemon peel and lemon juice of Jerry Thomas’s 1862 tea punch, with hot water in place of the brandy and rum, served from a warm bowl.
Alcohol-free versionAlcohol-Free Tom and Jerry, the Batter in Hot Milk
The spiced egg batter of the 1862 Tom and Jerry, beaten light and stirred into milk just off the boil, with nutmeg on top: the hot Christmas drink without the brandy.
Alcohol-free versionAlcohol-Free Whipt Syllabub over Lemon Whey
Cream whisked with orange and lemon juice, grated lemon peel and fine sugar, spooned over sweetened lemon whey, which Hannah Glasse offered in 1747 in place of the wine.
Always alcohol-freeAn 1886 Chocolate Cup with an Equal Weight of Sugar
An ounce of chocolate scraped fine with its own weight of sugar, thrown into a pint of boiling milk and water and milled until it dissolves: the chocolate drink of a Massachusetts chocolate maker’s 1886 booklet.
Bread Kvass, the 24-Hour Rye Kvass from 1887
Dried rye bread steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle, started with a little yeast and bottled with two raisins: Elena Molokhovets’s 1887 kvass, at a tenth of her batch.
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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.