Name: Artificial, or Cider Without Apples
Ingredients: 1 gallon cold water; 1 lb dark brown sugar; ½ oz tartaric acid; yeast

Artificial, or Cider Without Apples

Ingredients

1 gallon cold water
1 lb dark brown sugar
½ oz tartaric acid
yeast

Directions

Prepare the mixture

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

Keep and serve

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

Dark brown sugar: Provides sweetness and the food that the yeast ferments.
Yeast: Ferments the sugar, producing the drink's fizz and alcohol.
Tartaric acid: Adds the tart, acidic bite that gives the drink its cider-like sharpness.

“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.