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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 the brown sugar, West India molasses, and tartaric acid with the boiling water.

  2. Stir well and let it cool.

  3. Strain the mixture into a large jug or pan.

  4. Add the essence of sassafras and mix well.

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

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 1 tablespoon of the mead with half a tumbler of ice water.

  2. Add ½ teaspoon of carbonate of soda to the glass and stir to create foam.

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 body of the mead.
West india molasses
Adds deep flavour and extra sweetness, with a darker colour.
Tartaric acid
Supplies sharpness that balances the sweetness and gives the drink its tang.
Carbonate of soda
Reacts with the acidic mead to release carbon dioxide, producing foam when served.

The step that matters

Adding the carbonate of soda at serving. Carbonate of soda reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide gas, which creates the foam. It should be added to the glass only when serving, so the gas is not lost before the drink is enjoyed.

“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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