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

Artificial Cider, or Cider Without Apples

Ingredients

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

Directions

Combine 1 gallon of cold water, 1 lb of dark brown sugar, and 1 oz of tartaric acid in a large container.
Add 3 tablespoons of yeast and shake well to mix.
Let the mixture sit in the evening; it will be ready for use the next day.
For larger batches, scale the ingredients accordingly.
If it becomes a little sour, add more of the mixture to improve the flavor.

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 the sugar that yeast ferments, creating the drink's alcohol and body.
Tartaric acid: Adds the tart, sharp acidity that gives the drink its cider-like bite.
Yeast: Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the fermentation.

“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.