drinks

Oats boiled with ale. A strengthening or restorative drink.

"A beverage made by boiling ale with spice and sugar, and sops of bread". Known from 'A Dictionary of obsolete and provincial English' by Thomas Wright (Wright ...

A thickened almond-flavoured drink. Commonly ale and white wine boiled with sugar, stamped almonds, sweet spices and bread to thicken. (WM 1658, Robert May 1660...

Mixture of apple juice and other fruit juices with whole apples floating in, to be pulled out with the teeth alone as a party game at Halloween. Known in Englan...

Fresh apples pulped with boiling water.

Water in which apple slices have been steeped (Eaton 1822, Francatelli 1852, etc).

A spirit drink infused with various presumed health-giving herbs. Repeatedly appears in both pharmacists and wine-merchants lists from the late 1600s to the end...

A, usually very strong, ale traditionally brewed for the annual 'audit' at colleges of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The ales were formerly produced...

A form of Claret Cup, a red-wine and herb punch.

A version of English Ale developed for the Russian market. English beers were traded to Russia in huge quantities from the end of the eighteenth century until p...

Very dilute wash of cooked barley with lemon and sugar. Served cold.

Now a very strong (c10% ABV), sweet ale prepared with little hops, but formerly also known with other flavours added.

A wine produced at home by the alcoholic fermentation of sugar, usually with ginger, using clumps of yeast with a lactic bacteria, which rise and fall in the ja...

Sweetened gin in which young beech leaves have been steeped for several weeks.

The clear liquid from beef which has been boiled until fallen, strained and skimmed of all fat.

The made-wine from the sap of silver birch trees, collected by drilling into the trunk and allowing the liquid to trickle out over several days. Mixed with wate...

A medium copper coloured beer, made from malt, with a strong bitter taste from hops.

Carbonated drink flavoured with lemon, or lemon-like acids, plus quinine.

England has little tradition of digestive bitters, like Angostura, Cynar or Jagermeister. A receipt is known from Bradley 1728, of brandy with gentian root, ora...

Made from fresh, not dried leaves. Known in cook books at least since the 1850's, and probably much older.

Horror at the commonplace abuse of drink during the 19th century led to the promotion of 'temperance', of beer-free pubs and the development of a whole alcohol-...

Honey and ale fermented together, or ale flavoured with honey and spices. Known at least since Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' of c1386 "Hir mouth was sweete as brago...

Hot beer with nutmeg, cloves and apple pieces, a form of Lamb's Wool. Consumed on Shrove Tuesday at Brasenose College, Oxford, with the college butler reading o...

The product sold in the UK as 'British Wine' is not necessarily British, and cannot properly be called 'wine'. Which is very odd...

A malt beer, sweeter and less hoppy than bitter, usually darker in colour.

A cocktail drink usually made of champagne, or sparkling white wine, mixed with orange juice in approximately equal proportions.

Strong Indian black tea with ample sugar and milk - the presumed preferred drink of working builders.

Spirits, customarily rum, with water, sugar and a sweet spice such as nutmeg or cinnamon. The traditional drink of English merchantmen, in contrast to the simpl...

A Made-Wine made from fermented sugar and flavoured with Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor)

A beer described in 'Word for Word' (Whitbread & Co, 1953) as "a strong ale, dark in colour, made with a proportion of highly dried or roasted malts. It is not ...

Beer boiled with egg, sweet spices and butter. Known at least since the 16Cent it occasionally pops up right into modern times. As recently as 1936 we learn tha...

Warm milk with lemon, sugar, whole egg, rum and brandy. "At the University the lemon-rind is usually omitted" (Acton 1845)

Infusion of dried camomile flowers, known at least since the 17th Century and reputed good for rheumatism.

A general term for thickened drinks. Typically wine, milk or ale thickened with flour, oatmeal or egg, sweetened and spiced.

Hot wine with grated chocolate ("chaculato") egg yolks and sugar. This, in Wooley 1672, is the first known reference to chocolate in an English cookbook.

Water from washed pearl barley briefly simmered with lemon and sugar. Served cold.

Remember gentlemen, it's not just France we are fighting for, it's Champagne!

Old ale flavoured with cherries, known in many locations at least since the early 18thC, but especially associated with Kent. In 'Food in England' by Dorothy Ha...

A made-wine from cherries. Although now a staple of home wine-making, we can't trace cherry wine to much before the late 18th Century, partly because of confusi...

Although beer flavoured with chillies is an occasional speciality today, an earlier type is known from newspapers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and ...

The fermented juice of apples. Known by this name since the 14th Century (OED), and presumably much older.

EU Official Description: A traditional cider prepared by fermentation of locally grown cider apples with up to 25% perry pear juice

EU Official Description: A traditional cider prepared by fermentation of locally grown cider apples with up to 25% perry pear juice.

Cider distilled to c40% alcohol and matured in wooden barrels. Known at least since the 17th century, there are currently at least two commercial producers, and...

Cider mixed with brandy etc.

Hot cider with sweet spices.

Infusion of cinnamon bark, often with honey. Repeatedly mentioned in news reports from the min 1700s to the 1920's, sometimes as a definitive cure for cholera.

Red wine with flavourings, served cold. In 1398 John de Trevisa of Cornwall said that "Claret is made of wyne and of hony and swete spycery" and in 1559 Peter M...

Wine or ale with honey, spices and clary flavouring. Known since medieval times, by 1829 the poet Robert Southey could say; "Almost as obsolete as metheglin, hi...

Ale mixed with the jelly or minced meat of a boiled cock, typically with fruits and spices.

Ale, wine and brandy with citrus flavourings, including capillaire (orange syrup), herbs and spices.

Aqua vitæ (plain spirit, vodka) in which strawberries have steeped four or five days, sweetened (WM 1671).

Cowslip peeps (flowers) steeped in brandy and ale, with spices, then distilled (Moxon 1764)

Fermented honey-water with cowslip flowers (Eaton 1822).

White vinegar infused with cowslip blossoms and sugar. Diluted to drink. (White 1932, etc)

Infusion of the 'peeps' (petals) of Cowslip (primula veris), with sugar, fermented. Moxon 1764 adds brandy and says "This is right good." (Evelyn 1699)

Carbonated water with sweeteners and a vanilla flavouring reminiscent of ice-cream.

Water in which currants have been soaked, or in which currant jelly is dissolved. A summer drink, or the basis for various water-ices (Nutt 1789, Walsh 1859, et...

(Also: (OED) ME ciser, cisar, ME cisere, cysar, cyser, cesare; ME seser, ME sychere, syser, 15-16 sicer, 16 sicere)

Gin infused with pricked damsons and sugar.

Widely made at home, with at least one commercial producer, Lyme Bay Winery of Axminster, Devon. Bradley 1728 considered damson wine equivalent to Claret.

A drink traditionally made from partly fermented dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and burdock (Arctium lappa) roots with sugar, however there is strong rumour t...

Hot red wine with sugar, cloves and orange. Compare with Negus.

Boiled ale thickened with oatmeal and bread, known from 'A Dictionary of obsolete and provincial English' by Thomas Wright (Wright 1857)

Unlike the dark, heavy cocoa-rich drinks known elsewhere, such as Italy's cioccolata densa, English Drinking Chocolate is a hot drink made by adding milk to a p...

Tea, most usually Indian-style black tea, but occasionally other types, flavoured with bergamot. Usually drunk with little or no milk.

Cream and nutmeg stewed with sugar and "three spoonfuls of Sack, and some eight of Ale" (WM 1658)

Beer flavoured with fruit, especially elderberies. Known by this name at least since W. Ellis' London & Country Brewer' of 1743.

Frothed ale with eggs and spices.

Hot ale with eggs, brandy and sugar, frothed.

Hot beer with sugar, spices and egg whisked-in (Francatelli 1852)

Highly sweetened elderberry syrup, sometimes with spices, "very good for sore throats and fevers." (Eaton 1822).

Elderberry fruits boiled down with sugar and strained.

A made-wine of elder berries and sugar, known at least since the early 1700's. Family Guide 1747 makes it with the addition of dried vine fruits and especially ...

Whole elderflower heads steeped in acidulated sugared water. Strained and tightly bottled for some weeks, natural yeast on the flowers evolves carbon dioxide ga...

Syrup made by soaking elderflower heads in acidified sugar-water. Diluted to drink.

'Sack', an earlier name for what has now become Sherry, was immensely popular in England and there have been several attempts to produce an imitation of it at h...

The fermented juice of grapes grown in England, as distinct from 'Made Wine' and 'British Wine'.

A hot stew or soup made with ale, figs and spices, generally thickened with bread.

A flummery (set desert) boiled in ale to make a thick drink.

Sweet Gale is a variety of Bog Myrtle (Myrica Gale) with aromatic leaves occasionally used as an alternative to hops for flavouring beer.

Gin is a white distilled spirit, typically 40% alcohol, made from a fermented mash of grain flavoured with a mix of herbal 'botanicals' based on juniper berries...

Typically, 1 part gin to 2 or three parts Indian Tonic Water with ice and slice of lemon or lime.

Most traditionally, ginger beer is made at home from a Ginger Beer Plant, a gelatinous mixture of microorganisms to which fresh water, ginger, sugar and sometim...

Very sweet, rich wine, most traditionally made from raisins, flavoured with ginger. Usually fortified - Mrs.B recommends 1 pint of brandy to each 9-gallon batch...

Official Description: A traditional perry prepared by fermentation of locally grown Perry pears with up to 25% cider apple juice, with a soft slightly floral fl...

A Made-Wine from gooseberries, made sparkling by bottling before completely fermented.

Gooseberry infusion, fermented with sugar.

A 'Made-Wine' from gooseberries. (Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc) Known at least since Bradley 1728, "one of the richest and strongest Wines made in England...

Rum mixed with water. The traditional drink of the military marine, in contrast to the Bumpo of the merchant service.

"A sort of ale, formerly made in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, by boiling the tops of the [heather] plant to a wort, and then putting wormwood to it, and ferm...

Original Receipt in 'The Cook and Housekeeper's Dictionary' by Mary Eaton (Eaton 1822);

Official Description: A traditional perry prepared by fermentation of locally grown Perry pears with up to 25% cider apple juice, with a soft slightly floral fl...

A highly spiced, medicinal, wine. Commonplace from the 13th to 18th Centuries. The precursor of Tonic Wine. Compare with: Clary and Piment

Hock is a general term, used only in English, for the white wines of Germany. (Compare with 'Claret', an English term for certain French wines.)

Claret, soda water, sugar and brandy.

Hops infused in hot water, or hops added to Indian tea. Hop tea was commercially available in the 19th Century.

Proprietary malt drink supplied as a powder to be mixed with hot milk.

A form of ale, or other drink, made with horseradish as a presumed cure for stones. Known only from literary references, the receipt may be lost.

Hot beer with spices. Spirits such as rum sometimes added. Occasionally with egg. Known from the 17th to the 19th century (OED) it is unrelated to the stew of t...

Beer, egg, and brandy, made hot.

Given as an old name for very strong ale, barley wine in 'A Dictionary of obsolete and provincial English' by Thomas Wright (Wright 1857)

Fermented drink of water and honey. Digby 1669 has several receipts.

Sparkling, bottle-conditioned, pale ale with a high alcohol content, sharply flavoured with hops, customarily by the practice of 'double hopping' - of brewing w...

Old name for very strong ale, barley wine

Original Receipt in the first James Bond novel 'Casino Royale', published in 1953.

Official Description: Alcoholic beverage golden brown in colour (with a light creamy head when poured), has a strong aroma of hops and a bitter flavour. Has alc...

Official Description: Alcoholic beverage golden brown in colour (with a light creamy head when poured) has a strong aroma of hops and a bitter flavour. Has alco...

Ale with beaten egg, cream, sugar and nutmeg (Eaton 1822).

A form of ale, now lost, mentioned in Vogel's 'Statistical Sketch on Beer' of 1874 and known from several newspaper references from the mid-19th to early 20th c...

Coffee with frothed milk on top.

Hot ale beaten to a froth with whole eggs and sweet spices, poured over hot apple pieces.

Whisky (or whiskey, there is no distinction) was commercially manufactured in the Lancashire towns of Manchester, Liverpool and Bolton in considerable quantity ...

Known in England by this name at least since 1663 (OED) lemonade is traditionally sweetened lemon-juice and water, but in England the drink is now almost univer...

Any of several drinks shared as a sign of friendship, often drunk from a large two-handled vessel with a lid - the origin of the cups imitated as sports trophie...

General term for wines made-up from several ingredients, legally (since 1889) those made from fruit and sugar. Most English 'country' wines (elderflower, damson...

A mixture of black treacle and gin, an old sailor's drink.

A strong made-wine from malt wort, as used for brewing beer, commonly with raisins and sugar. The term has also been used as a synonym for 'makt whisky'.

An infusion of marigold leaves. Superior to "the cheaper kinds of teas, which are ...from their spurious and almost poisonous nature, calculated to produce evil...

Sack, ale and sugar, boiled with egg yolk & extra whites. Milk or cream added. Known from WM 1658 and others.

There is a tradition of a mixed fruit and wine punch flavoured with spring herbs, particularily the sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum or Asperula Odorata), in Ger...

May blossoms, flowers of Crataegus monogyna, the common hawthorn, steeped in brandy with sugar.

An alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water. When flavoured with herbs it is Metheglin

Mead flavoured with herbs, known since the mid 1500's.

Punch of red and white wine with orange liqueur, sliced fruit (apple, melon, strawberry, etc) lemonade and crushed ice (British Food Trust, etc)

A low-gravity, malty beer, usually of fairly low alcohol content, c3%. In the north, a very dark, almost black, ale, in the Midlands a lighter brew.

Milk with brandy, citrus and spices (Moxon 1764)

Drink of fermented honey with mulberries. Claimed to be ancient, but not known before the 19th Century.

Hot ale with spices such as ginger, nutmeg cinnamon, sometimes formerly including thickeners such as egg.

Hot wine with spices.

Equal parts of fortified rich wine (usually Port, but also Sherry or Madeira) and boiling water with sugar, lemon, vanilla and nutmeg.

A nickname for rum, and, more recently, a brand of spiced rum provided by the 'Lord Nelson' Inn in Horatio Nelson's home village of Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk.

Strictly, not a beer but a 'made-wine', described as early as 1836 in 'The Monthly Review', nettle beer is assumed to have been a less potent brew than the hop-...

A full bodied reddish brown beer, 4.7% ABV, with a distinctive bitter-sweet taste, usually packaged in a clear flint glass bottle. Typically the ale is consumed...

A strong brandy-based citrus fruit punch (Rundell 1807, Eaton 1822, Farley 1811, Mrs.B. etc).

Dark, winey, strong (c6%) lightly hopped beer.

Diluting juice drink made with fruit juices, commonly with citric or tartaric acid and sugar.

Proprietary malt drink provided as a powder to made up with hot milk.

Port with a lemon stuck with cloves and roasted, spices, sugar (Acton 1845) A form of Mulled Wine

Beer with lemon, sherry nutmeg and toasts. Known at least since 'Oxford night caps, a collection of receipts for making various beverages ' by R. Cook, 1847

Lemon, sugar, bitter orange, liquid calf's foot jelly, water, white wine, brandy, rum, shrub (qv) (Acton 1845)

Infusion of the leaves of the pennyroyal plant, "A most wholsome and excellent Tea" (Evelyn 1699) .

Perry is an alcoholic drink, much like cider, made from fermented pear juice. Perry has been known in England at least since the 14th Century (OED) and is espec...

(Also known as 'The Original Gin Sling')

Woodland herbs such as rue, rosemary, sage, sorrel, celandine, mugwort, the tops of red brambles, pimpernel, Balm, Angelica, (Digby 1669, Family Guide 1747) ste...

A made-wine from plums, especally associated with the Cotswolds. The origin of the name is obscure.

Infusion of the seed-pods of the garden poppy, Papaver Somniferum, in water. Drunk hot.

Porter is a very dark beer made using highly dried brown malt, of middle strength and hoppiness, generally made using soft water.

A hot drink of ale, or ocasionally wine, with milk and spices. The name has more recently been transferred to Caudles and Syllabubs

In the North of England a form of thickened spiced ale, especially associated with Twelfth Night celebrations.

Vinegar flavoured with sugar and primroses (Eaton 1822, Hartley 1954, etc)

Citrus with brandy, sugar and water (Eaton 1822).

A type of wine flavoured with honey and spices, taken for refreshment or used as an ingredient in medicinal recipes (OED).

('Quick' as in 'lively') Bottled ale with raisins or wheat-corns added. "After a while this will drink exceeding quick and pleasant" (Digby 1669). The adding of...

A made-wine with sugar, formerly recommended as a mild laxative (Mrs.B, etc)

Minced rose hips boiled in sugared water, strained and reduced. A syrup for diluting to make a drink, or a sauce for plain puddings or ices.

A designation obtained by: Ruddles Brewery Ltd. Official Description: Alcoholic Beverage brown/amber in colour around 3.4% alcohol by volume. Predominantly bitt...

An old name for the wines of Spain and the Canaries, possibly including what is now called 'sherry'.

A commonplace drink before the arrival of India or China tea, made with the narrow leaved sage.

'Salep' is a starchy meal, originally from the dried tubers of Orchis mascula, the early purple orchid, made into a hot drink, usually with sugar, and sometimes...

A soft drink flavoured with Jamaica sarsaparilla (Smilax officinalis) or other herbs of similar flavour. Formerly a staple of 'Temperance Bars', and widely prom...

A mixture of beer, of any sort, and fizzy lemonade. The modern successor to historic 'small beer'.

A mixture of ale and ginger beer. Known since the late 18th Century. See also: Shandy

'Sherry' is an English corruption of 'Jerez', a wine produced in a triangular area of the province of Cádiz between Jerez, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar...

Sherry with sugar, lemon and ice, always drunk through a straw. Of unknown origin, but mentioned in Dickens' 'Martin Chuzzlewit' of 1844.

Rum with citrus juice (lemon, lime, orange, currants), sugar (Eaton 1822).

Sweetened gin in which pricked sloe fruits have been steeped.

Very low-strength beer, or beer mixed with water. Often made from the re-boiled mash left-over from brewing a stronger beer, it was an everyday drink in England...

Red wine and port with citrus peel, sugar and cloves, served hot. Acton 1845 says that it is usually made with a roasted bitter orange.

Hot milk with sweet spice, most commonly nutmeg.

A summer drink made from raisins and lemon. Known at least since Thomas Blount's 'Glossographia' of 1656; "Stipone, a kind of sweet compound liquor, drunk in so...

Old name for very strong ale, barley wine.

Old name for very strong ale, barley wine .

Stout is a stronger version of porter. A very dark, almost black, strong bitter beer with a pronounced dry malt taste. Known by this name at least since 1677 fr...

North American term for a variety of sweetened, mixed drinks including those based on tea, molasses or rum. The term has been used in England for sugared water ...

Poppy flower-heads boiled, commonly with raisins, liquorice, aniseed and sugar (Moxon 1764). A cough remedy or the basis of sedative drinks.

A drink of almond milk with spices and wine.

The leaves of the tea-plant, almost invariably of the dried, fermented black form, prepared into a hot beverage. Usually consumed with a little milk and sometim...

Hot tea mixed with egg yolks and sugar (Digby 1669)

Mandarin, lemon, Seville orange, sugar, pineapple, green tea, rum, brandy, arrack and champagne, iced (Acton 1845, Mrs.B, etc)

A proprietary carbonated soft drink of unknown composition, but including carrot and safflower extracts. Produced from 1924 in Manchester by Fred Pickup & Co, a...

Water in which very hard burned toast has been soaked. Strained and served cold (Francatelli 1852, etc)

Spirit such as whisky with hot water, sugar, lemon and sometimes spices such as cloves.

Uncoloured, carbonated water with quinine and, usually, sweeteners. Generally accepted as having been invented around 1850 as a relatively palatable way of taki...

Generally a sweet, strong, red wine with added herbs or compounds such as iron salts, formerly supposed to confer medicinal benefit, though now labelled with ca...

Beer made by fermenting treacle and water (Eaton 1822, Hammond 1819, etc).

Hot milk with black treacle and spices. There are numerous variations, some may include ale, cider, vinegar or wine and one version, reported in the Bolton Chro...

A made-wine (qv) known from Wooley 1672.

Known at least since Glasse 1747.

A Scottish style of pale ale sold from the 18th Century onwards at 2 pence per Scotch Pint (a measure given in Grose 1811 Dictionary as being 'two quarts' or fo...

A drink made from water, barley with herbs, aniseed and liquorice (Huswife 1594)

Mentioned in Izaak Walton's 'The Compleat Angler' (1653) as "a drink composed of sack, milk, oranges, and sugar, which, all put together, make a drink like nect...

A proprietary fruit drink made from grapes, raspberries and blackcurrants, available as a diluting cordial or fizzy preparation. Consumed cold or hot.

Wassail at Thatchers Cider

Original Receipt in 'The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight, Opened' (Digby 1669)

Buttermilk whey flavoured with sage or mint leaves. A traditional drink for women helping at harvest.

Grains, most traditionally barley, converted to a fermentable form ('malted') by an enzyme, fermented with yeast to make an ale and then distilled and matured i...

Strong ale formerly brewed by the wardens as a Church fund-raiser at Whitsuntide, the seventh Sunday after Easter. Once widely practiced, especially in the Sout...

Warm ale with cloves, sweet spices, apple and sugar.

Soured milk or buttermilk, sometimes flavoured with herbs, as a drink, known from 1528 until the 19th century (OED).

Pimm's No.1, gin, strawberry syrup, mandarin juice and cream, chilled.

Original Receipt from 'The Complete Practical Brewer' by Marcus Lafayette Byrn, USA, 1852

From the official description: Cider prepared by fermentation of locally grown cider apples with up to 25% perry pear juice, exhibiting rich appley flavours wit...

Official Description: A traditional perry prepared by fermentation of locally grown Perry pears with up to 25% cider apple juice, with a soft slightly floral fl...