Name: Drink for a Weak Constitution
Ingredients: ¾ cup pearl or Scotch barley; 1 ounce gum arabic; water

Drink for a Weak Constitution

Ingredients

¾ cup pearl or Scotch barley
1 ounce gum arabic
water

Directions

Make the barley water

Boil ¾ cup of pearl or Scotch barley in water until you have about 3 pints of liquid.
Strain the barley water.

Add the gum arabic

Dissolve 1 ounce of gum arabic in a little water.
Mix the dissolved gum arabic with the barley water and boil together.
Serve warm.

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

Pearl or scotch barley: Releases starch and flavor into the water, giving the drink its body and grain taste.
Gum arabic: Acts as a thickener and stabilizer, giving the drink a smoother, more viscous mouthfeel.

“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.