Name: Artificial, or Cider Without Apples
Ingredients: 1 gallon cold water; 1 lb dark brown sugar; 4 oz tartaric acid; 3 tablespoons yeast

Artificial, or Cider Without Apples

Ingredients

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

Directions

Combine cold water, dark brown sugar, tartaric acid, and yeast in a container.
Shake well to mix the ingredients.
Make this mixture in the evening for it to be ready the next day.
If desired, store in a keg, leaving some for the next batch without adding more yeast until the keg needs rinsing.
If the mixture becomes sour, add more ingredients to it.
Serve chilled with ice in hot weather or bottle and 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 alcohol that make this drink cider-like.
Dark brown sugar: Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and a molasses flavor.
Tartaric acid: Adds sharp acidity that gives the drink a tart, apple-like bite.

“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.