The Spirit World

One of my favorite pastimes — when I have the time — is to page through old old cookbooks and try out recipes to sample the taste of ages past. In particular I have always been fascinated by the beverages: the shrubs, cordials, non-grape wines, syllabubs and such. More intriguing among these are the vinegars and acids. A closer read shows that these were not intended to dress salads but were actually sweet syrup drink preparations, precursors to today’s soda pop.

These “acids” are a combination of fresh fruit, an acidic component for tartness, and a bunch of sugar. A few ounces of the syrup are combined with cool or iced water for a refreshing summer drink. The relatively recent introduction of seltzer or soda water makes them more delightful still.So in 1839, Lettice Bryan included a recipe for “Syrup of Vinegar” among the shrubs and
cordials in her classic frontier manual, The Kentucky Housewife. (Amazon UK.)

Syrup of Vinegar
Put two sliced lemons, two sliced oranges, a pound of sugar, and a quart of honey, with one gallon of the best vinegar; boil them together until they form a thick syrup, keeping the vessel tightly covered, and then strain, cool and bottle it. A little of this syrup, mixed with iced water in summer, makes a delicious beverage. A very good syrup may be made of the best vinegar and sugar, in the proportions of two pounds of sugar to one gallon of vinegar, and boiled till tolerably thick.

You would need to make a trip to Costco to obtain that quantity of vinegar these days. In Ms. Bryan’s time, these preparations were also about preserving food and the flavors of summer for all year round. And because a two-liter bottle of cola was not within reach, folks made these concoctions in quantity.

This has been a great season for berries here in the mountains of North Carolina, so I decided to try some of these acids with our local bounty. Fortunately I did not have to pick twenty quarts of berries and buy gallons of vinegar to make a Mulberry Acid. Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis provided a smaller-scale recipe in their wonderful book, The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks. (Amazon UK.)The “acid” in the Peacock/Lewis version of Mulberry Acid is tartaric acid, a by-product of wine production. At first this seemed very hard to find, but the local winemaking/home-brewing supply house had a lot of it, and cheaply. (N.B.Tartaric acid is not cream of tartar.)

With a neighbor’s tree providing the mulberries, I made up a batch of Mulberry Acid, bottled it, stuck it in the fridge and waited. These things take patience, but the two weeks passed quickly as the flavors mingled and matured. And the wait was worthwhile! I poured an ounce or so of the syrup over ice in a tall glass and filled it with seltzer water. Cool, flavorful and refreshing, my Mulberry Acid was not overly sweet and not nearly as tart as the name would imply. The berries came through well, but not nearly as cloyingly as you’d taste in a modern soda. When the blackberries came in, I tried the same thing with them.

A couple of years ago, Saveur Magazine published a recipe for Blackberry Acid that looks quite intriguing. The difference here — in common with many of the heritage recipes I have found — is that the syrup is fermented rather than heated as the Peacock/Lewis recipe provides. It is almost as though one is making a sweetened wine:

“Divide blackberry liquid between sterilized bottles or jars, cover tops with clean cheesecloth, and secure with kitchen twine or a rubber band. Store in a cool, dark place for 3 weeks, until acid is thick and syrupy and slightly fizzy.”

I have set aside some blackberries to try this with. But the tried-and-true instructions from The Gift of Southern Cooking appealed to me first. It works well with somewhat smaller quantities, too: a single pint of blackberries will almost fill a 750 ml. bottle with syrup. I’ll paraphrase Peacock and Lewis here using that lesser quantity.

Blackberry Acid

One pint (2 cups) fresh blackberries
2 cups filtered or bottled water
2 teaspoons tartaric acid
Sugar

Put the berries into a heat-resistant glass jar or stone crock. Boil the water in a non-reactive pan, remove from heat and stir in the tartaric acid. Pour the scalding-hot water over the berries. Cover and let sit undisturbed for at least six hours, overnight better still. Strain the berries and liquid through a few layers of damp cheesecloth or a jelly bag — being careful not to press on the berries. Measure the liquid and pour into the nonreactive pan. Add the same quantity of sugar to the liquid and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved. Bottle this, let it cool, and refrigerate for not less than two weeks.

You can double or triple this recipe to almost-fill additional bottles. Those French-style soda bottles with the crock cap and seal are perfect for this.  Blackberries — or huckleberries, marionberries, elderberries, whatever grows best near you — are still in season in much of the U.S., so it is not too late for y’all to try this out now. If you make some this week, it will be ready to cool you down during the blistering days of August. Next spring, try it with strawberries.

Cocktailians can use this method to make their own grenadine — a pomegranate acid. I am going to experiment with the effect of substituting a blackberry or mulberry for grenadine in some of my favorite cocktails. And I have learned that a dash or two of bitters adds the same lift to this nonalcoholic treat as it does in a good cocktail. And if you really want to go all out, what could be better than a sprig of mint to garnish.
Enjoy!