Georgia is a place of diverse drinking climates. In the Low Country around Savannah, Gullah Geechee and coastal cuisines converge. In Atlanta, metropolitan interests and the unavoidable giant of Coca Cola loom. In Macon, the powers of Southern culture dominate. In the terminating reaches of the Appalachian mountains the influence of mountain culture persists. It is a state where sweet tea and Coca Cola vie for prominence and moonshiners and tee-totalers vote in the same elections.
While businesses still make moonshine stills in northwestern Georgia, I only had the opportunity to visit the library along the coast. Combined with archival research in Charleston, a thorough picture of the history of drink in the Low Country emerges.
For starters, a library in Summerville, South Carolina, had The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer from 1896. The text gives an excellent introduction to the beverage section that is worth presenting in full:
A beverage is any drink. Water is the beverage provided for man by Nature. Water is an essential to life. All beverages contain a large percentage of water, therefore their uses should be considered:–
Freshly boiled water should be used for making hot beverages; freshly drawn water for making cold beverages.
While most texts just present drinks as recipes and as an afterthought, this is a profound yet concise consideration of the definition of beverages. While the book is not from the region in question, it is relevant. The text goes on to give recipes for De John’s Tea (tea with cloves and sugar,) Wellesley Tea (iced tea infused with mint when hot,) and Sauterne Cup (a wine punch of soda, Sauterne wine, orange, lemon, Curacao, sugar, mint, and strawberry.)
More in line with the regional realities, there were regional recipes presented by Mrs. Hill’s Southern Practical Cookery and Receipt Book from 1872. Of intrigue are the Crab Apple Beer made from boiled crab apples, yeast cake, and sugar. It was ready to drink in two days. Cherry nectar also makes an appearance. This is a sort of pre-soda syrup made form cherries soaked in white wine for four days. Sugar is then added and the mixture is boiled for an hour and stored in a cool place. On a hot Georgian day, a bit of the cherry nectar is mixed with iced water for refreshment.
Georgians also apparently had some medicinal beliefs about their beverages. A 1909 text, The Savannah Cook Book: Compiled by the Ladies of Westminster Presbyterian Church, explains how to make something called “Wine Whey For the Sick” made by scalding a cup of milk, adding a cup of wine, cooking until it curdles, and then straining. Barley water, too, was considered a suitable cure for fevers. The recipe: “Wash two tablespoons pearl barley, scald with boiling water, boil five minutes, strain. Add two quarts cold water, simmer till redacted to one-half. Strain, add lemon juice to taste.” The 1863, Confederate Receipt Book: A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts, would add that the tea of the Horehound herb could cure chills.
Pine trees were also used for the decoction of herbal teas. The Clemson House Cook Book, by Russie H. Paget from 1955, explains that young pine tops and needles can be washed, boiled and strained. The infusion is good with sugar and cream.
In addition to crab apple beer, the Confederate Receipt Book describes something called “Apple Water.” This is somewhere between juice and syrup, although I have no evidence of a similar recipe. “Take one tart apple of ordinary size, well baked, let it be well mashed, pour on it one pint of boiling water, beat them well together, let it stand to cool, and strain if off for use. It may be sweetened with sugar if desired.
Punches were also a common theme across the historical cookbooks. Recipes for several tea punches were given in addition to wine punches, coffee punches, and almond punch. A 1904 recipe book out of Savannah, Favorite Recipes From Savannah Homes: A Collection of Well Tested and Practical Recipes Compiled by the Ladies of the Bishop Beckwith Society, also gives a recipe for Gaelic Punch courtesy of the local St. Andrew’s Society. The stock of the punch consists of water, sugar, lemon, and clove. It is served “piping hot, using equal parts of Scotch and stock.”
Another interesting punch comes from the islands. Sharon Kay Hunt’s “My Official” Carolinas’ Sea Islands Gullah Cookbook: Representing History and Foods of the Carolinas’ Sea Islands gives a recipe from Cat Sea Island for Sweet Potato punch consisting of baked and mashed sweet potatoes, sugar, water, cinnamon, and fruit juice.
Finally, a cocktail sort of concoction for something colorfully called Tewahiddle is given by Paget. It is beer, brandy, brown sugar, nutmeg, and lemon.
The evidence for complex alcoholic concoctions along the Low Country coast is impressive. South Carolina, where red rice is grown, apparently also was aware of how to make rice wine in 1904 according to on text. From crab apples to cherries, rice to sweet potatoes, many of the staples that the South has become known for were at some time or another incorporated into their beverages.
Oh, yeah. And muscadine grapes are also called bullaces.
Confederate Receipt Book: A Compilation of Over One Hundred Receipts. 1863. Adapted to the Times. Reprinted by University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 1960.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Little, Brown, and Company, 1896.
Hill, Annabella P. Mrs. Hill’s Southern Practical Cookery and Receipt Book. A facsimile of Mrs. Hill’s New Cook Book 1872 edition. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 1995.
Hunt, Sharon Kay. My Official Carolinas’ Sea Islands Gullah Cookbook: Representing History and Foods of the Carolinas’ Sea Islands.
Paget, Russie H. The Clemson House Cook Book. Jacobs Brothers, Clinton, S.C., 1955.
The Ladies of the Bishop Beckwith Society. Favorite Recipes From Savannah Homes: A Collection of Well Tested and Practical Recipes. The Morning News, 1904, Savannah, GA.
The Ladies of Westminster Presbyterian Church. The Savannah Cook Book. Morning News Print, Savannah, GA, 1909.
Somewhere in a coffee shop in Brooklyn, NY, Mika Turbo is making a mean coffee cocktail. They have worked in coffee for 15 years in nearly all facets of the US-side of the business. Now, Turbo has turned to competition to express his love of the drink and the performance of hospitality that goes along with it.
Agua fresca is everywhere in Mexico with all kinds of flavors, but almost all of it is sold in the same kind of container. This plastic barrel is called the vitrolero. It has likely been around and full of sweet fruit juices for about a century now, a result of Mexico’s commercialization of glass.
As tea was farmed and dried in the mountains of Southern China, it was shipped out on long, difficult journeys to the west towards India and the east towards Beijing. It would arrive in large cities in the teapots of sophisticated and influential households at the end of its journey, but on the way, exposure to time, the elements, and perhaps the sweat of pack animals transformed the tea. When a long leaf variety from the Camellia sinensis var. assamica plant was subjected to these conditions, the buyers found the flavor to be exquisite. Pu erh was born.
The glass bottles of mezcal that grace your liquor store shelves have not always been that way. Within the last century, mezcal was stored in large 25+ liter jugs. As it became more popular in Mexican bars, ceramic artisans began styling liter sized bottles in the shapes of women, penises, and monkeys known as changos. For a couple decades, the chango ruled, but plastic and glass killed it. Santa Maria Coyotepec is the homeland of the chango mezcalero and other fine black ceramics.
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