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- Feb 5, 2017
From the Museum of Civil War Medicine
We drink Switchel still up North when haying. We are currently haying here - this has been a GREAT year for it, compared to last year's non-stop rain. I love see what an "outdoor mess" looks like!
In the South, a more common way to cool off on a hot day was by drinking fruit vinegar. Just as with switchel, the vinegar replaced essential electrolytes and had various flavors in different regions due to what fruit, usually berries, were seasonally available. Again, we thank our wonderful friend, Elaine Kessinger for her exceptional research and information. If you'd like to make your own fruit vinegar and give it a try, here is a recipe from "Miss Beecher's Domestic Recipe Book: Designed As A Supplement To Her Treatise On Domestic Economy" by Catharine Esther Beecher in 1846.
Strawberry Vinegar
Put four pounds very ripe strawberries, nicely dressed, to three quarts of the best vinegar, and let them
stand three, or four days. Then drain the vinegar through a jelly-bag, and pour it on to the same quantity
of fruit. Repeat the process in three days a third time. Finally, to each pound of the liquor thus obtained,
add one pound of fine sugar. Bottle it and let it stand covered, but not tight corked, a week; then cork it
tight, and set it in a dry and cool place, where it will not freeze.
Raspberry vinegar can be made in the same way
Image Credit: Library of Congress "Beaufort, South Carolina 'Our Mess'"
We drink Switchel still up North when haying. We are currently haying here - this has been a GREAT year for it, compared to last year's non-stop rain. I love see what an "outdoor mess" looks like!
In the South, a more common way to cool off on a hot day was by drinking fruit vinegar. Just as with switchel, the vinegar replaced essential electrolytes and had various flavors in different regions due to what fruit, usually berries, were seasonally available. Again, we thank our wonderful friend, Elaine Kessinger for her exceptional research and information. If you'd like to make your own fruit vinegar and give it a try, here is a recipe from "Miss Beecher's Domestic Recipe Book: Designed As A Supplement To Her Treatise On Domestic Economy" by Catharine Esther Beecher in 1846.
Strawberry Vinegar
Put four pounds very ripe strawberries, nicely dressed, to three quarts of the best vinegar, and let them
stand three, or four days. Then drain the vinegar through a jelly-bag, and pour it on to the same quantity
of fruit. Repeat the process in three days a third time. Finally, to each pound of the liquor thus obtained,
add one pound of fine sugar. Bottle it and let it stand covered, but not tight corked, a week; then cork it
tight, and set it in a dry and cool place, where it will not freeze.
Raspberry vinegar can be made in the same way
Image Credit: Library of Congress "Beaufort, South Carolina 'Our Mess'"
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