Have you ever found yourself on a hot summer day, you've worked hard, you
played really hard, and you're rung out.
You really need something to drink, well today, we're going to be making a
thousand-year-old energy drink that was popular in the 18th century. Thanks
for joining us today on 18th century cooking with Jas Townsend & Son.
So, you know, we really don't do drinks very frequently here on the show but we
do plan on doing a series on drinks here in the future.
Today the drink we will be making is called switchel. According to the
oxford companion for american food and drink,
switchel is a new england invention; but others say that switchel actually
came from the Caribbean to North America.
Well, it probably more likely, it turns out, that switchel's just related to a
number of very similar drinks that have been used or made for a thousand
years in various cultures around the globe.
Switchel also goes by the name of Sitchel, aqua forte,
ginger punch, Yankee beverage, and swizzle.
This drink is high in potassium, that's an electrolyte the body needs especially
when you've perspired a lot, and this drink was used for exhausted field hands and
sailors alike.
Most recipes for switchel are found in mid 19th century cookbooks, but it's
firmly rooted in eighteenth-century references also. You can even find very
similar drinks used by Roman soldiers to refresh themselves and the ancient
Greeks had a very similar drink that was called oxemel. This invigorating tonic can
be made in several different ways and it's very easy to put together. The
recipe we're using today is from a mid 19th century cookbook called
"The Skillful Housewife".
I'll start with a half a gallon of clean drinking water, to this I'll add a half a
cup of unsulphured molasses, a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar and a heaping
tablespoon full of powdered ginger.
Now stir this really well,
be sure to use barbados molasses or light molasses and definitely not a
blackstrap molasses
that will be much too bitter. Some of the recipes actually call for the use
of maple sugar or maple syrup instead
and some of those references to molasses actually mean
maple syrup. Honey makes another great alternative.
That Roman drink, that was made with honey instead of molasses.
Instead of or in addition to the vinegar, you could use lemon juice or lime juice
and that will make a very interesting variation.
Instead of the powdered ginger you could use a fresh ginger
that's finely minced, but powdered ginger was a much more common way to find
ginger in the 18th century. Ginger was one of the most common and one of the
most inexpensive spices available at the time.
Another great variation to this, would be to add your daily rum ration right to
this drink, that would make a great version of this! A closely related drink is
a popular concoction called shrub,was various fruit juices, something like that
of raspberries or blackberries. sweetened how you pleased and added to vinegar.
We offer a book at Jas Townsend and son called "Libations of the 18th century".
This does have recipes for switchel, as well as many other popular drinks at the
time. You'll find a link to this book in the description below. So many times this
drink was placed in a jug and suspended down into a well or placed in
a running stream of water to cool it off but we've all found that when we drink
cool things on a hot day can upset our stomachs,
that's one of the reasons why we believe that they had added ginger to this drink.
Let's give this a try.
Looks good...
...you know, it still has the smell of vinegar, but not very strongly,
you know, vinegar's about the last thing I ever want to eat or drink but this
actually it reminds me a lot of a good apple cider!
It's very good. I can see why this would be a very very popular drink especially
in hot weather.
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