Skip to main content
Drink

Porter Soda

A sweetened beverage made by simmering porter with sugar and tartaric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Porter Soda

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the quart of water.

  2. Add the bottle of porter and let it simmer slowly.

  3. Dissolve the tartaric acid in the tumblerful of water.

  4. Stir the tartaric acid mixture into the syrup just before removing it from the heat.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Dissolves to form the syrup that gives the drink its body and sweetness.
Porter
Adds malt flavour and aroma to the syrup as it simmers.
Tartaric acid
Provides sharp acidity that gives the drink its tang when stirred into the syrup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the tartaric acid mixture. Adding the acid just before removing the syrup from the heat keeps the sugar from being over-inverted and helps the flavour stay bright. Adding it too early, while the syrup is still simmering, can change the sweetness and flavour.

“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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes