Name: Artificial Cider
Ingredients: 1 gallon cold water; 1 lb dark brown sugar; ½ oz tartaric acid; 3 tablespoons yeast

Artificial Cider

Ingredients

1 gallon cold water
1 lb dark brown sugar
½ oz tartaric acid
3 tablespoons yeast

Directions

Make the cider

Combine cold water, dark brown sugar, tartaric acid, and yeast in a container.
Shake well to mix the ingredients.
Make it in the evening for use the next day.
If it gets sour, add more mixture.

Serve and store

Serve chilled with ice or bottle and store in a cool cellar.

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

Dark brown sugar: Provides sweetness and the food the yeast ferments to produce the drink's alcohol and carbonation.
Yeast: Ferments the sugar, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that give the drink its character.
Tartaric acid: Adds the sharp, tart acidity that gives the drink its cider-like sourness.

“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.