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Beer of Various Fruits
Have two quarts of water boiling, split six figs. and cut two apples into six or eight slices each; boil the whole together twenty minutes; pour the liquid into a basin to cool, and pass through a sieve, when it is ready for use. The figs and apples may be drained for eating with a little boiled rice. A delicious beverage may be made from currants, cherries or blackberries by this recipe.
Despite the name, nothing here ferments: this is a boiled fruit infusion, closer to a barley water or a Victorian invalid drink than to brewed beer. It comes together in under half an hour and is meant to be drunk cool.
- What "beer" means hereSome nineteenth-century household books used "beer" loosely for a fruit-flavoured water served cold, though the word more usually implied a fermented drink. In any case there is no yeast, no sugar and no standing time in this recipe, so it will not ferment as written.
- Quantities and yieldTwo quarts of water will reduce over a twenty-minute boil, though how much depends on the pan and the heat; expect somewhat less than the eight cups you started with, enough for four to six servings.
- The figsDried figs are most likely meant rather than fresh. Six dried figs is roughly 3 to 4 oz; splitting them opens the flesh to the water.
- The applesThe recipe says only to slice them, so skins and cores can be left in if the apples are sound. A tart cooking apple works better than a sweet dessert variety.
- SweeteningThe original adds none, relying entirely on the figs. Taste after straining — with modern apples the result is often thin, and a spoonful of sugar or honey stirred in while the liquid is still hot corrects it.
- StrainingThe recipe simply says to pass the cooled liquid through a sieve. Do not press the solids through or the drink turns cloudy and pulpy; let it drip.
- The fruit variationsCurrants, cherries and blackberries carry less sugar than dried figs, so the same twenty-minute boil will give a sharper, thinner liquid. The original directs the identical method; a shorter boil for soft berries is a modern departure, not the recipe's instruction.
- KeepingWith no sugar or alcohol to preserve it, this is a fresh drink. Refrigerate and use within two days.
Fruit "beers" and "waters" of this kind filled a gap in the domestic drinks cupboard before commercial soft drinks were widespread: they used up dried store-cupboard fruit, needed no ice house, and were considered wholesome for children and the sick. The pairing of figs with apples is telling — dried figs were cheap, said to have been imported in pressed blocks from the Mediterranean, and were valued as much for their mild laxative reputation as for their sweetness, which is why they turn up so often in Victorian nursery and invalid cookery. The instruction to save the boiled fruit for eating with rice is characteristic of the period's thrift: nothing that had cost money went into the bin, and a second dish out of the same pan was simply good management. Recipes headed "beer" that contain no yeast do appear in late nineteenth-century household manuals, though most such recipes still called for yeast.