Tag: Bennington Beverages

Cider Season

October 20th, 2025

Self-sufficiency has its seasons. In the Spring, the 19th century residents of Bennington would have been tapping their maple trees to produce enough syrup and sugar to last the family through the year. In the Summer, planting, harvesting, and putting up the crops took up their time and dictated the school year of their children. In the Fall, harvesting apples to turn into cider was the order of business.

Apples were grown for several purposes: to eat fresh in the Fall, to make into pies and other desserts, to sell, to store in barrels to eat in the Winter, to make into cider, to make into vinegar. There were many varieties of apples that the homesteader could plant, some best for applesauce, some good for storage, some especially for cider. Cider itself had two purposes. When freshly pressed, it was a pleasant, sweet beverage, however it had a short shelf-life. On the other hand, sweet cider was also very easy to ferment into what we now call ‘hard cider’, which could be imbibed from Fall into Spring. The alcohol content might have been 5-8%. BTW, the apple trees that Johnny Appleseed [John Chapman] planted in Ohio were for making apple cider — hard apple cider. Making cider took some long-term planning!

We live on land originally settled by the Colby Family in 1825. Where our house stands was the farm’s pasture and orchard. As we cleared the white pine forest for our house site, we found the descendants of ancient apple trees, still surviving. Colby’s trees had been planted in the 1820s, and might have begun to bear fruit 15 years later. Before Bennington was even a town, people were preparing to make apple cider. We preserved as many of those antiques as we could. One tree produces cider apples — small and tart and late-bearing, perfect for cider. Good cider is a combination of ‘cider’ apples and ‘sweet’ apples.

Pressing cider for the family could be done at home, using a small press, but more likely there was a neighborhood or town press that would deal with whole wagonloads of apples at once. Like a corn-husking bee, neighbors would gather to press their apples communally, putting the cider into barrels to store in the cold ‘back house’ at home. There it would ferment all by itself, if conditions were right. When temperature were cold in the Winter, the alcohol in the cider would prevent it from freezing, forming a layer of water ice on the inside of the barrel, with hard cider of high alcohol content [ABV 20%] in the center. Now we call this Ice Wine, and you pay a lot for it in the State Store. Teenage boys would sneak out to the back house with a straw, to sample the Ice Wine, knowing they would be in for a hiding if their dad found out! Dad was looking forward to that tipple for himself, to get him through the winter.

Apple cider, sweet or hard, was the go-to beverage of the 1800s. Making it was an important part of village and farm life of the past.

The next installment of the Bennington NH Historical Society Blog will be posted on November 17, 2025. If you click the Subscribe button, all future posts will be sent straight to your inbox every month – for free.
Bennington Beverages, alcoholic types

October 14th, 2024

An historian asks, “What happened on a particular day – a battle? The death of a king?” The social historian asks, “What did people do on that day – what did they wear? What did they eat?”

Today we will answer the question, “What did people drink in Bennington?” We know that people were living within the boundaries of the present town as early as 1782, so we will take that as a starting place. My references for this foray into the past include: Tea With Jane Austin; the two Town histories and Colonial Spirits.

As we saw last month, there were many non-alcoholic beverages available to early residents. Do not think that our early residents were teetotalers: alcoholic beverages were part of daily life. The Farm Wife had to be well-versed in turning plant matter into beverages: for family consumption, to supply to hired hands, to serve to guests, to preserve the harvest, and for medicinal use.

>>Gruet is an ancient fermented mixture made from herbs and grains but no hops. It is a light, refreshing alcoholic beverage with a short storage life. It would be made and served at home during the summer when the flavoring herbs were ripe.

>>Beer was consumed in vast quantities all day long. This was in keeping with traditions from the Old Country. When we read today about a man of that era drinking a gallon of beer a day, it sounds shocking. But you should know that the alcohol content was very low: 1-2.5% — practically water! Beer was made at home and also at taverns and public houses. With the addition of hops, beer could keep for months.

>>Cider was a very important beverage in early times. By 1800, apple trees had become well-established and their fruit was needed to make the mildly alcoholic drink we refer to today as ‘hard cider.’ Cider is very easy to make and was put up in barrels to last the family through the year. The alcohol content was 3.5-4%. In the winter, the cider barrels would freeze – except for the alcohol portion. Teenage boys would sneak out to the shed and get schnonkered on the highly intoxicating liquid. Cider was usually of the ‘still’ variety, not the bubbly cider more popular today.

>>Apple jack is distilled cider. Distilling was a common home activity to make small quantities of medicinal alcohol necessary for preparing tinctures. Most farm wives had a distillation apparatus and they took pride in preparing liqueurs and other distilled delights. A gallon or two of apple jack would be doled out for celebrations or as medicine for its stimulating effect.

>>Wine from Europe could be purchased at great expense in port cities, but it is unlikely that even the most wealthy Bennington citizens were drinking it until the later 1800s. Local people could make do with home-made wine. So-called ‘country wines,’ they were not made from wine grapes but from local fruits. If the Good Wife sent the children out to pick wild fruit, some of it went into pies and jellies and lots of it went into wine. Wine would be served socially and also used for medicinal purposes. “Take a little wine for the stomach’s sake,” said Saint Paul to Saint Timothy.

>>And then there is rum. Made with molasses from the Triangle Trade, rum could be purchased at the tavern or even at Whittamore’s general store. Making rum oneself was not a common practice since it took ingredients in quantities not found at home. Rum was in punch, in cocktails [they go back to the 1700s], and sometimes drunk straight up. Rum was used to influence voting all over the 13 Colonies as ‘vote buyers’ would bribe people with liquor to vote early and often for their candidate.

Rum in those days was a rather nasty beverage. To temper its harsh flavor, many other ingredients were added. A typical drink of the era might have been a Cold Flip. It contained rum, molasses, salt, a raw egg, and brown ale all shaken together and topped with nutmeg. Then there was Regent’s Punch, made of tea, rum, wine, and fruits.

The next installment of the Bennington NH Historical Society Blog will be posted on November 11, 2024. If you click the Subscribe button, all future posts will be sent straight to your inbox every month – for free.
Bennington Beverages, non-alcoholic choices

September 16th, 2024

An historian asks, “What happened on a particular day – a battle? The death of a king?”

The social historian asks, “What did people do on that day – what did they wear? What did they eat?”

Today we will answer the question, “What did people drink in Bennington?” We know that people were living within the boundaries of the present town as early as 1782, so we will take that as a starting place. My references for this foray into the past include: Tea With Jane Austin; the two Town histories and Colonial Spirits.

>>“Adam’s Ale”, as water has been called, was not uncommon as a beverage. Living on the river made fresh water very accessible. The hill farms had to rely on dug wells, but the water in town was good to drink. It is popularly said that Colonial-era people drank beer because the water was unhealthy. That was true in European cities, but not in early small-town New England, until industrial pollution made the water unsafe.

>>Tea from England was expensive and had been a bone of contention during the revolutionary war, so it is unlikely that early residents of Bennington drank much tea. Tea leaves were expensive, so they would have been steeped over and over to wring all the flavor from them. The alter-natives were herbal teas from such sources as raspberry leaves or bergamot. These were considered inferior but patriotic. Herbal teas were also used as medicines. Tea also found its way into drinks that packed a bigger punch, as we will see later.

>>Coffee would have made its way into local stores by mid-1800.

>>Sumac ‘Lemonade’ was made from the red clusters found on Staghorn and Smooth Sumac in late Summer. Soaked in hot water, then strained, the tart liquid was sweetened with honey or maple syrup to make a pleasant beverage. This knowledge came from the Indigenous People of the area.

>>For the farmer or laborer toiling in the hot sun, Switchel was considered the best thirst-quencher. Made of water sweetened with molasses or honey, the most important ingredient was cider vinegar or sometimes rum. Pitchers of cool switchel were a boon to the hay-making crew.

>>In Autumn, apples would be pressed into cider. While the season lasted, cider was a delightful drink, just as it is now.

The next installment of the Bennington NH Historical Society Blog will be posted on October 14, 2024. If you click the Subscribe button, all future posts will be sent straight to your inbox every month – for free.

Tag: Bennington Beverages

Cider Season

Bennington Beverages, alcoholic types

Bennington Beverages, non-alcoholic choices