Stephen Cresswell - Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop

Stephen Cresswell

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Edited by Pamela B. Lappies

Cover design by Meredith Maker

Cover photograph by Stock Food

Text design and production by Mark Tomasi

Production assistance by Jennifer Jepson

Line drawings by Randy Mosher

Indexed by Peggy Holloway

1998 by Stephen Cresswell

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Printed in the United States by Malloy Printing

15 14 13 12

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cresswell, Stephen Edward.

Homemade root beer, soda, and pop / Stephen Cresswell.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58017-052-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Carbonated beveragesAmateurs manuals. I. Title.

TP630.C74 1998

641.875dc20

97-49254
CIP

This book explains how root beers and other traditional soft drinks can still be made from scratch at home and includes a number of recipes devised especially for this volume. Youll also find a generous sprinkling of recipes dating from much earlier times, which I have been collecting for many years, culling them from old cookbooks, newspapers, and magazines. Featuring yesterdays tastes alongside todays techniques, Homemade Root Beer, Soda, and Pop is able to fill several needs.

First, there is an unfortunate lack of books that discuss the creation of homemade soft drinks. A few books include one or two recipes, but these are hard to find. Second, as a history teacher I enjoy delving into the past. Accumulating recipes for root beers, ginger ales, and birch beers, dating back many years, decades, and even centuries, has been a pleasurable pastime. Ive found some particularly unusual recipes, such as those for Tomato Beer and Pumpkin Ale. Rather than allow these recipes to molder in dusty cookbooks and forgotten journals, I wanted to share them with people who might be interested in re-creating the potable treasures of years gone by. Finally, this book will teach techniques of brewing that are quite similar to those used in beer making, and those who choose to do so can very easily go on to add delicious homebrewed beers to their repertoire of bottled homemade beverages.

The sidebars of this book contain the word-for-word recipes written down many years ago by farm wives, amateur scientists, women journalists, and experts in home economics. I enjoy reading these recipes because they offer a rare window into what Americans were drinking with their dinner or during the hot work of blacksmithing, threshing, or clothes washing so long ago. Often the most valuable parts of the recipe are the little comments by the person recording it, comments that tell us of American attitudes about taste, about drinking, and even about humanity.

A Note about Historical Recipes

Nearly all of the historical recipes are from the United States, though a few from other nations are included for variety. The recipes are reproduced verbatim from the original sources with no attempt made to change or mark odd, archaic, or incorrect spelling or grammar. The sources for these recipes are listed on page 109.

. Youll enjoy success by following the refrigerator method that was used in all of the modern soft drink recipes in this book. As with the modern recipes, these older recipes will benefit from the use of utensils, carboys, and bottles that have been sanitized ahead of time with hot water to which some plain chlorine bleach has been added (about 2 tablespoons of bleach per gallon of water).

Note, too, some differences in terminology. In years gone by, when a recipe called for yeast, it was expected that the cook would add a lump of bread dough (containing as it did active yeast) or a measure of beer with still-active yeast in it. Accordingly, many of the historical recipes call for half a cup or more of yeast. This would be an absurdly excessive amount using todays granulated yeast. With modern ale yeast (available from homebrew supply shops), about teaspoon per gallon should be about right. Actually, the precise measure is really unimportant. The yeast will simply multiply until all the sugars are fermented or until you stop the fermentation by chilling. Using more yeast than teaspoon may cause the carbonation to proceed more quickly than you expect, however. Wine yeast or even bread yeast will work, too, in the same amounts as with ale yeast, if ale yeast isnt available.

The earliest recipes here come from the 1600s; the last of them was written down in 1939. While none of these recipes was designed to make a strong alcoholic drink, remember the basic principles of brewing to ensure that you create essentially nonalcoholic drinks if that is important to you. To make a virtually nonalcoholic drink, you should not allow the yeast and sugar to work together for more than an hour or so before bottling. Except in the case of citrus drinks, which carbonate very slowly, nonalcoholic drinks should work only two or three days after bottling. Move them to the refrigerator as soon as the carbonation is right. Dont allow the drinks to overcarbonate, or the alcohol in the drink might prove to go beyond trace amounts.