Last week I wrote of old Columbus porches and some of the beverages served there. The story of beverages popular in Columbus is an interesting one. Of course, bourbon or a refreshing lemonade have always been popular but there is so much more to the beverage history here.
A review of 19th century recipes from Columbus provides an interesting insight into people’s taste. The oldest cookbook used in Columbus that I have seen is Sally Billups’ 1825 copy of “The Virginia Housewife.” Most of the drinks in that cookbook are listed in a chapter called “Cordials, & etc.” In the 1800s, a cordial was a sweet drink, that may or may not have contained alcohol, served warm, generally after a meal.
In 1825, favorite drinks included: ginger wine, orgeat (a milk, cinnamon and almond drink,) cherry brandy, rose brandy (made from fragrant rose,) raspberry cordial, mint cordials, peach cordial (made with fresh peaches sliced and aged 4 to 6 weeks in peach brandy and brown sugar) and ginger beer.
In the golden age of steamboats, steamers were leaving Columbus on an almost daily basis for Mobile. With many boats to pick from, people often selected the boat they would travel on based on the steamer’s cook or bartender. One New York writer traveling on an Alabama steamboat in 1858 described the boat’s food and drink as comparable to that of a Paris restaurant. The list of supplies for the Steamboat Tropic in the Columbus-Mobile trade in 1837 includes the following beverages on board: coffee, tea, French cordial and whiskey.
It was also steamboats that brought ice to Columbus. During winter high water, cotton would be shipped by steamer down the Tombigbee to Mobile. There the cotton would be loaded onto ships, many of which traveled to New England. For ballast on their much lighter loaded return voyages to Mobile, ice from lakes and rivers would be used. This could be sold in Mobile and then shipped upriver. Ice would be stored, well insulated until summer, in deep straw lined pits in the ground.
At the Columbus Steamboat Landing, in the 1850s, James Blair built an icehouse with thick brick walls to store ice brought up from Mobile by Steamboat. And of course, Blair didn’t just sell ice. At his drug store on Main Street in Columbus, you could purchase “for medical purposes” brandy, Holland gin, Jamaica rum and pure Scotch whiskey.
Popular beverages of the mid-1800s are provided in Sally Billups’ 1866 cookbook “Southern Cookery.” Beverages are included in two chapters. One chapter is titled, “Wines and Cordials.” The other beverages are listed in a chapter titled simply “Miscell- aneous.” The list of wine recipes includes: muscadine, blackberry and port wine Sangaree. Cordials were blackberry and strawberry. Other drinks were peach brandy, grape brandy, corn beer, hop beer, ginger beer, persimmon beer, egg nogg, mint julep, milk punch and lemonade.
In the 1800s beer often referred to a beverage that was carbonated but not necessarily fermented. Across the country and in Columbus, ginger beer was a popular non-alcoholic beverage. The July 6, 1839, Columbus Democrat newspaper provided the following recipe for “Ginger Beer”: “Fill a bottle with pure cold water; then have a cork ready to fit it, also a string to tie it down with, and a mallet to drive the cork so that no time may be lost; now put into the bottle sugar to your taste, (syrup is better) and a teaspoon full of good powdered ginger. Shake all well, then add the sixth part of an ounce of soda, cork rapidly, and tie down — shake the bottle well — cut the string — the cork will fly — then drink ginger beer.”
One of the most popular cookbooks of the mid-1800s was Miss Leslie’s New Cookery Book published in various editions from 1837 to 1870. This was a popular cookbook in Columbus, and I have seen several examples from here and have the 1853 edition that had belonged to the my family. Among the beverage recipes are:
“STRAWBERRY CORDIAL — Hull a sufficient quantity of ripe strawberries, and squeeze them through a linen bag. To each quart of the juice allow a pint of white brandy, and half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Put the liquid into a glass jar or demijohn, and let it stand a fortnight. Then filter it through a sieve, to the bottom of which a piece of fine muslin or blotting paper has been fashioned; and afterwards, bottle it.”
“CAROLINA PUNCH — Mix together a tumbler of peach brandy and a tumbler of water, the juice of two lemons, the yellow rinds of four, pared to transparent thinness, and four large juicy free-stone peaches cut in half, and the kernels of their stones blanched and broken up. If you cannot obtain peaches, quarter and grate down a ripe pine-apple. Let all these ingredients infuse with a quart of Jamaica spirits in a bowl for two days before the punch is wanted. Keep it carefully covered with a cloth. Then pour on sufficient cold water to make the punch of the desired strength; and strain the liquid into another bowl, and put in a large lump of ice. Serve it out in small glasses.”
After the Civil War, the beverage market began to change with the bottling of ready-to-drink products. Ale from Scotland in pottery bottles had been popular since before the Civil War but pottery ale and beer bottles soon gave way to glass. Anheuser-Busch first produced beer in glass bottles in 1876, and Coca-Cola began bottling Cokes in 1894.
By the time “The New Dixie Receipt Book” came out in 1902, the Southern taste was becoming more modern. Root beer was no longer made from scratch. The recipe, rather than giving ingredients, stated: “A cooling, non-intoxicating and healthful drink for summer is Hire’s Root-Beer. Procure a bottle of Hire’s root-beer extract of your grocer and follow directions for making.” Even the recipe for “a summer drink,” which was ginger beer, called for using Hire’s root-beer extract and adding ginger to the mix.
A new beverage also appeared on the Columbus scene, the milk shake. To make a milk shake in 1902 one would “fill a glass 2/3 full of milk, sweeten to taste with any fruit syrup or with sugar and then flavor with vanilla or orange water. Fill up glass with cracked ice and shake together until well mixed.”
Although ice had been available in Columbus through the steamboat trade with Mobile since the early 1800s, it was the beginning of the 1900s that saw the increasing popularity of iced drinks such as flavored teas and the wide spread sales of bottled sodas and beer. The beverage taste of the South had entered a new century.
And as to that favorite of children, Kool-Aid, it was invented in 1927 by Edwin Perkins as a drink called “Fruit Smack.” He changed the name to Kool-Aid, and in 1953, sold it to General Foods.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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