"Includes recipes for beers, ciders, wines, liqueurs and many other beverages."

By John Hull Brown, 1966. I came across it today. Interesting (one recipe is for raspberry wine), though it's a bit bulky and I can't imagine I'd be making most of these alcoholic beverages. The photos - a lot of them are of colonial kitchens and living rooms - are in b&w. There are 19th-century drawings too.

From one reader:

"Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic and these recipes show a slice of Americana that will be entertaining and mostly recreatable using more modern techniques. The explosion of home brewing, winemaking and now high proof distilling should make much of this information much more accessible. I expect to see more of these products appearing on liquor store shelves. The apothecary sections are very revealing, modern medicine did not exist so these tinctures mostly treated symptoms with painkillers. Everything in moderation, especially when drinking from these receipts."

And this one's longer and amusing:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...ican-beverages

Excerpt:

"...Everything sounds delicious!: Balm of Mankind, Cherry Bounce, Citronelle, Eastern Beverage, Eau Divine, Elephant's Milk, Fox Grape Shrub, Huile de Venus, Liquodilla, Marasquin de Groseilles, Metheglin, Old Men's Milk, Perfect Love, Persicot, Orange-flower Cream with Milk and Champagne Wine, Troubadours' Elixir, Usquebaugh, Bang, Flummery Caudle, Crambambull, Flip, Flap, Jingle, Hot Pull, Jelly Posset, Capillaire!

"I just wish they all didn't call for twelve pounds of parsnips and twenty-five of sugar!"

https://archive.org/details/earlyamericanbev00brow
(you can "borrow" it here)



Lenona.

On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), wrote:


>"Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic

Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.

> wrote in message
...
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
>
>
>>"Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>
> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.

Yep.

On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>
>
> >"Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>
> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.

I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those who don't know.)


Lenona.

On 4/19/18 6:33 PM, wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4,
> wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>>
>>
>>> "Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>>
>> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>
> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the
> Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after
> a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a
> result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those
> who don't know.)
>
>
> Lenona.
>

fermentation is a great way to "preserve" food

On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:18:04 -0700, ZZyXX
> wrote:

>On 4/19/18 6:33 PM, wrote:
>> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4,
>> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>>>
>>> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>>
>> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the
>> Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after
>> a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a
>> result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those
>> who don't know.)
>>
>>
>> Lenona.
>
>fermentation is a great way to "preserve" food

Actually that is not true.... it's a great way to suffer deadly
food poisoning... you've obviously not eaten a fermented chicken
sandwich.

On 4/19/2018 9:33 PM, wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4, wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>>
>>
>>> "Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>>
>> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>
> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those who don't know.)
>
>
> Lenona.
>

I imagine the beer was fairly low alcohol though. More important it is
mostly water and will not infect you like contaminated water.

In article >,
says...
>
> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4, wrote:
> > On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
> >
> >
> > >"Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
> >
> > Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>
> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after a while.
Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a result, by
the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those who don't
know.)

Look up "small beer"; the usual drink of the time.

Janet UK

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

On 2018-04-20 9:16 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 4/19/2018 9:33 PM, wrote:
>> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4,
>> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> "Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>>>
>>> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>>
>> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the
>> Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after a
>> while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a
>> result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those
>> who don't know.)
>>
>>
>> Lenona.
>>
>
> I imagine the beer was fairly low alcohol though.Â* More important it is
> mostly water and will not infect you like contaminated water.

According to the book Mayflower the ship was headed to New Amsterdam
where the Dutch were allowing them to establish a colony. They landed in
Massachusetts because they had run out of beer.

wrote:
> ... one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those who don't know.)


Even though beer is definitely diuretic, it's mostly water and
your body still gets water each day. You eliminate it fast but
the body does get some of the water first so that's better than
nothing. Not so healthy but you could probably go for quite a
long time using only beer for hydration.

Not only that, all that watered down pee can be consumed one more
time without any bad results. Just drink it right away...after
that first pass, it will be mostly water and little or no
alcohol. Ask Bear Grills about that. heheh I watched one of his
survival shows where he found a fresh pile of elephant poop and
squeezed the water out of it to drink. It was a survival tip.

And one more thing I've learned about survival at sea - if water
supply is low, you can actually add a small percent of seawater
to fresh water to extend your supply. I forget how much...maybe
up to 30% seawater added to fresh water and you can still survive
much longer without severe organ damage in extreme conditions.
Mainly kidneys that fail first I think if you drink pure
seawater.

YMMV!

On 4/19/18 7:50 PM, wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:18:04 -0700, ZZyXX
> > wrote:
>
>> On 4/19/18 6:33 PM, wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4,
>>> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> "Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>>>>
>>>> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>>>
>>> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the
>>> Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after
>>> a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a
>>> result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those
>>> who don't know.)
>>>
>>>
>>> Lenona.
>>
>> fermentation is a great way to "preserve" food
>
> Actually that is not true.... it's a great way to suffer deadly
> food poisoning... you've obviously not eaten a fermented chicken
> sandwich.
>
at least once a week, you should find a better supplier

ZZyXX wrote:
> On 4/19/18 7:50 PM, wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:18:04 -0700, ZZyXX
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/19/18 6:33 PM, wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, April 18, 2018 at 11:03:56 PM UTC-4,
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:23:40 -0700 (PDT), lenona wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> "Early American Beverages were overwhelmingly alcoholic
>>>>>
>>>>> Because they DIDN'T have easy access to clean water.
>>>>
>>>> I know, but one thing puzzles me. Any detailed account of the
>>>> Mayflower voyage says that even the children had to drink beer after
>>>> a while. Wouldn't everyone have been close to dying of thirst as a
>>>> result, by the time they landed? (Alcohol is very diuretic, for those
>>>> who don't know.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Lenona.
>>>
>>> fermentation is a great way to "preserve" food
>>
>> Actually that is not true.... it's a great way to suffer deadly
>> food poisoning... you've obviously not eaten a fermented chicken
>> sandwich.
>>
> at least once a week, you should find a better supplier

Thank Gawd we don't have to eat from popeye's Navy galley!

He doesn't know that fermentation is NOT the same as bacterial
contamination. People making beer, wine, etc. are usually very careful
to clean and sterilize equipment to prevent bacterial infection of their
brew. They usually try to obtain a known/trusted strain of yeast to
start the ferment.

On Fri, 20 Apr 2018 17:24:25 -0500, Hank Rogers >
wrote:

>ZZyXX wrote:
>> On 4/19/18 7:50 PM, wrote:
>>> On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:18:04 -0700, ZZyXX

>>>> fermentation is a great way to "preserve" food
>>>
>>> Actually that is not true.... it's a great way to suffer deadly
>>> food poisoning... you've obviously not eaten a fermented chicken
>>> sandwich.
>>>
>> at least once a week, you should find a better supplier
>
>Thank Gawd we don't have to eat from popeye's Navy galley!
>
>He doesn't know that fermentation is NOT the same as bacterial
>contamination. People making beer, wine, etc. are usually very careful
>to clean and sterilize equipment to prevent bacterial infection of their
>brew. They usually try to obtain a known/trusted strain of yeast to
>start the ferment.

Somewhere in the 60s, Popeye lost the ability to learn something or to
take in new information. He's frozen in time.

Bruce wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Apr 2018 17:24:25 -0500, Hank Rogers >
> wrote:
>
>> ZZyXX wrote:
>>> On 4/19/18 7:50 PM, wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:18:04 -0700, ZZyXX
>
>>>>> fermentation is a great way to "preserve" food
>>>>
>>>> Actually that is not true.... it's a great way to suffer deadly
>>>> food poisoning... you've obviously not eaten a fermented chicken
>>>> sandwich.
>>>>
>>> at least once a week, you should find a better supplier
>>
>> Thank Gawd we don't have to eat from popeye's Navy galley!
>>
>> He doesn't know that fermentation is NOT the same as bacterial
>> contamination. People making beer, wine, etc. are usually very careful
>> to clean and sterilize equipment to prevent bacterial infection of their
>> brew. They usually try to obtain a known/trusted strain of yeast to
>> start the ferment.
>
> Somewhere in the 60s, Popeye lost the ability to learn something or to
> take in new information. He's frozen in time.
>

I doubt he ever had those abilities.