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Sassafras Mead

A fermented beverage made from boiling water, brown sugar, molasses, tartaric acid, sassafras essence, and soda carbonate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sassafras Mead

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mead

  1. Mix boiling water with brown sugar, molasses, and tartaric acid until well combined.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then strain it into a large jug or pan.

  3. Stir in the essence of sassafras.

Bottle and serve

  1. Transfer to clean bottles, cork tightly, and store in a cool place.

  2. To serve, mix 1 tablespoon of mead with ½ tumbler of ice water and stir in ½ teaspoon of carbonate of soda.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and fermentable material that gives the drink its body.
West india molasses
Adds depth of flavour and extra colour, contributing to the drink's dark, rich character.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the drink its tang.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid when stirred in, releasing carbon dioxide to create fizz when served.

The step that matters

Stir the carbonate of soda into the serving glass. Carbonate of soda reacts with the acid in the mead to release carbon dioxide, so it should be added just before serving to keep the fizz lively rather than letting it dissipate.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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