Skip to main content
Drink

Artificial Cider, or Cider Without Apples

A sweetened, yeast-fermented beverage made from water, sugar, tartaric acid, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Artificial Cider, or Cider Without Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the small batch

  1. Combine 1 gallon of cold water, 1 lb of dark brown sugar, and ½ oz of tartaric acid in a large container.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of yeast and shake well.

  3. Prepare this mixture in the evening for use the next day.

Make the large batch

  1. For larger batches, mix 5 gallons of hot water, 30 lbs of brown sugar, and ¾ lb of tartaric acid in a barrel.

  2. Add 25 gallons of cold water to the mixture.

  3. Add 3 pints of yeast mixed with a paste made from ¾ lb of flour and 1 pint of water.

  4. Let the mixture work for 24 hours, allowing the yeast to overflow.

Bottle and store

  1. Bottle the cider, adding 2 or 3 broken raisins to each bottle.

  2. Store the bottles on their side in a cool place.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and carbonation.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that makes the cider fizzy.
Tartaric acid
Adds the sharp, acidic bite that gives the cider its tang.
Flour
Forms a paste that feeds the yeast and helps it get started.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture work for 24 hours. Fermentation is vigorous, so the yeast can overflow the container. Leaving room for foaming prevents spills, and the yeast must be active for the sugar to convert into carbonation.

“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.

You might also like

Raisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes