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Drink

SarsaparUla Mead

A sweet, tart beverage made by boiling sarsaparilla, sugar, tartaric acid, and bicarbonate of soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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SarsaparUla Mead

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sarsaparilla in water for 5 hours, ensuring enough water remains to yield 1 quart after straining.

  2. Strain the liquid and add the sugar and tartaric acid.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of the syrup with ½ pint of water and add ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate 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

What each ingredient does

Spanish sarsaparilla
Provides the main flavour, extracted by long boiling in water.
Granulated sugar
Supplies sweetness and body to the syrup and helps preserve it.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid when added to the drink, producing fizz.

The step that matters

Reducing the boil to 1 quart. Boiling for 5 hours concentrates the extract, but too much water loss gives a strong, sugary syrup while too little leaves it weak. Topping up or measuring after straining keeps the batch consistent.

“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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