Name: Artificial Cider
Ingredients: 1 gallon cold water; 1 lb dark brown sugar; 1 oz tartaric acid; 8 tablespoons yeast

Artificial Cider

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare

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

Serve and store

If it gets sour, add more of the mixture.
Serve chilled with ice or bottle and store in a cool cellar.

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 carbon dioxide for fizz and alcohol for the drink.
Dark brown sugar: Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and molasses flavor.
Tartaric acid: Adds sourness, giving the drink its tart, cider-like bite.
Cold water: Forms the liquid base that dissolves the sugar and carries the other ingredients.

“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.