Sweet Memories

Kevin Coolidge

“More rain, more rain.” I look out my window and see a fat robin hopping across the lawn. The calendar says March 20th. It must be spring, even though there’s a light dusting of snow on the ground. Spring is coming, I can taste it in the air, and soon we’ll be planting gardens and pulling weeds, complaining that it is “too hot.” When you are working in the field, there’s nothing like a cool glass of switzel.

I grew up drinking switzel. My Grandma would make a cold pitcher for my dad and me when we were hauling wood or doing chores. Just what is switzel? Switzel – also known as switchel, swizzle, ginger-water or haymaker's punch – is a beverage made of water mixed with vinegar and honey, then seasoned with ginger.

Switzel is believed to have originated in the Caribbean, where molasses was often used for a sweetener. By the late 1600s, it had become a popular drink in the American colonies and by the 1800s it had become a traditional drink to serve to thirsty farmers at hay harvest time, hence the nickname haymaker’s punch.

Sugar, brown sugar, or maple syrup is also sometimes used to sweeten the drink instead of honey. In Vermont oatmeal was sometimes added to give the drink extra body and lemon juice is also occasionally added to the beverage. My grandma and mom only ever made switzel with honey. The ratio of sweetener and vinegar to water varies widely in traditional and modern recipes, but here’s a basic recipe to get you started.

8 cups water
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon ground ginger

For more great recipes with honey, I recommend checking out The Healthy Taste of Honey: Recipes, Anecdotes & Lore by Larry Lonik, published RKT Publishing. There are recipes from around the world, including old German, Croatian, Slavic, Russian, Polish, Canadian, and American. There are twelve categories of honey recipes here: for cooking, baking, canning, roasting, barbequing, freezing and more—and all for eating or drinking. The majority of the recipes are “sugarless” meaning they require no white sugar. A few, however, do call for sugar as well as honey, as the author did not wish to alter the ingredients of these long-treasured secrets.

The Healthy Taste of Honey is more than just a book of recipes. It’s filled with fascinating facts about the social insect which produces honey. For example, there are 500 honeybees for every human being. Larry Lonik also includes a brief history of the honeybee in North America. The honeybee is not native, but introduced to the continent by early settlers.

Honey has been a part of mankind’s history. In many cultures, honey has associations that go beyond its use as a food. The Egyptians sometimes used honey for embalming, and in the Roman Empire, honey was possibly used to pay taxes instead of gold. The Old Testament has many references to honey, the most famous being from the book of Exodus describing the Promised Land as a “land flowing with milk and honey.” Yes, the fate of man and honeybee are intertwined. It has been said, that “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left”…

Switzel? Gatorade™ or an ice cold beer? Email me at frommyshelf@epix.net Buzz on over to http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com to check the hive for past columns. Hobo prefers butterflies to bees -- read all about it in “Hobo Finds A Home,” a children’s book about a cat who doesn’t want to drink switzel.