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

Artificial, or Cider Without Apples

Ingredients

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

Directions

Make the mixture

Combine cold water, dark brown sugar, tartaric acid, and yeast in a container.
Shake well to mix the ingredients.
Prepare this mixture in the evening for use the next day.

Scale up

For larger batches, use a keg and reserve a few quarts for the next batch without adding yeast again until the keg needs rinsing.

Adjust and serve

If the cider becomes sour, add more of the mixture.
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 drink's alcohol and fizz.
Dark brown sugar: Feeds the yeast and adds caramel-like sweetness and depth.
Tartaric acid: Adds sourness that sharpens the drink's flavour.
Cold water: Dissolves the sugar and acid and carries the yeast through the mixture.

“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.