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Extract (Dissolve four pounds)
Dissolve four pounds of granulated sugar in five gallons of lukewarm water; add one bottle of Larkin Root Beer Extract and from one-half to a whole cake of either Larkin Dry Yeast or Compressed Yeast. During cooler months, increase quantity of yeast. Mix thoroughly and put into strong bottles or jugs, securely corking and tying. Set in a warm place until it becomes effervescent. It is ready for use in from ten to twelve hours, but improves if allowed to stand several days. Store in a cool place, and serve cold.
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A mail-order premium cookbook selling its own extract, so the key ingredient is a brand that no longer exists. Everything else translates directly, with one caveat about pressure that the original treats casually.
- The hinge: fermentation does not stop on its ownThe yeast keeps eating sugar and making gas for as long as it is warm. Once the bottles feel firm and the drink is fizzy, get them into the refrigerator, and keep them there. Sealed glass left at room temperature for the "several days" the original suggests can build enough pressure to burst; plastic soda bottles are the sane modern choice because you can feel the sides go hard.
- Larkin Root Beer ExtractLarkin was a Buffalo mail-order house, and the extract was one of its own products. Any current root beer extract works: a standard 2 fl oz bottle is formulated for 4 to 5 gallons, which matches this batch.
- A cake of yeastCompressed yeast cakes of the modern sort run about 0.6 oz, though period cake sizes varied. On that basis, half to one cake is roughly 1 to 2 teaspoons of modern active dry yeast for five gallons -- still a small amount, because the yeast is there for carbonation rather than brewing. More yeast means faster gas, not more flavour.
- Sugar and ratioFour pounds of granulated sugar in five gallons is about 9 percent by weight, close to a modern commercial soft drink. Dissolve it fully before the yeast goes in, or the bottom of the vessel stays syrupy and the top ferments unevenly.
- "Lukewarm" and "a warm place"The book gives no temperatures; in modern terms lukewarm is somewhere near blood heat for dissolving, and an ordinary warm room, roughly the low 70sF, suits the standing period. The instruction to increase yeast in cooler months is really a note about kitchen temperature; a modern heated house is likelier to sit in that range year round.
- Ten to twelve hoursThat is realistic at 75F with a live culture. Check by opening one bottle rather than by the clock, then chill the rest immediately.
- Trace alcoholYeast-carbonated root beer finishes low in alcohol, usually well under one percent, though the longer standing the original recommends pushes it up. Anyone avoiding alcohol entirely should use forced carbonation or a bought soda instead.
- YieldFive gallons is about forty pints, a household quantity for a period family. The recipe scales down cleanly by fifths if you want a single gallon.
This is a house recipe in the literal sense: the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York, began as a soap manufacturer in the 1870s and grew into one of the great American mail-order firms, distributing groceries, extracts and dry goods through a club and premium system in which customers earned furniture and household goods by buying Larkin products. Cookbooks like this one were promotional literature, and the ingredient list doubles as an order form: Larkin extract, Larkin yeast. Home-bottled root beer suited the arrangement well, since a small bottle of flavouring extract shipped cheaply and turned five gallons of sugar water into something a temperance-minded household could serve with pride. Root beer itself is generally traced to American small-beer and "root tea" traditions built on sassafras, sarsaparilla, birch and wintergreen; by the time this book appeared, the flavour had largely been standardised into bottled extracts, and the cook's job was reduced to sugar, water and enough yeast to make bubbles.