Name: Artificial, or Cider Without Apples
Ingredients: 1 gallon cold water; 1 lb dark brown sugar; ½ oz tartaric acid; 3 tablespoons yeast

Artificial, or Cider Without Apples

Ingredients

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

Directions

Combine cold water, dark brown sugar, tartaric acid, and yeast in a large container.
Shake well to mix the ingredients.
Prepare this mixture in the evening for use the next day.
If it gets a little sour, add more of the mixture.
Serve chilled with ice or bottle.
Store in a cool cellar if sales are slow.

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

Yeast: Ferments the sugar, producing the fizz and the drink's alcohol and flavour.
Dark brown sugar: Provides the sugar that yeast ferments, and adds sweetness and molasses flavour.
Tartaric acid: Adds the tart, sour bite that gives the drink its cider-like character.

“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.