Hay-Time Switchel

Instead of writing a typical first post on a new blog explaining its purpose, blah blah blah, I've decided to just jump right in and offer you a nugget of pure ecleccentricity.  (If you want the story behind the blog, click on the ABOUT page above.  There are plenty of words there to satisfy your curiosity or put you to sleep.)

Recently my oldest son, as eclectic and eccentric as anyone, approached me with a request to help him make "switchel".  I promptly pointed out that I had no idea what he was talking about, asking him to repeat the request about a thousand times (I exaggerate) to the point of frustration on his part.  I finally discerned that he wanted to make a beverage and that he'd found the recipe in our copy of the Reader's Digest book, Back To Basics: How To Learn and Enjoy  Traditional American Skills.  (Note:  Our copy is the original 1981 version.  You can see this version on Amazon by clicking  HERE.)

I'm going to admit right away that I am not always jumping for joy when my children (most often the oldest) ask me to help them with projects like this.  Like most adults, I would think, I am not prone to quickly and willingly giving up whatever I'm doing to dive into a spontaneous beverage-making project that I was not expecting or wanting.  HOWEVER, I do, admittedly, like exploring things that are off the beaten path, and once I read the book's description of said beverage, I was on board with attempting to whip out a batch.

To draw you into this experience with me, I'm going to throw in a few quotes from the book's description.  It's pretty cool.  First of all, how awesome is it that this recipe is found in a section of the book called, "Soft Drinks and Juices To Slake All Thirsts"?  Pretty awesome if you ask me.  Secondly, who could resist being intrigued by the following:

"Switchel is a refreshing, energy-boosting drink used by farm-hands to slake (italics are mine.......this is my new favorite word) their thirsts during the heavy work of harvest season, especially the back-breaking labor of haymaking.  Long before refrigerators, or even icehouses, jugs of switchel were kept cool in the springhouse or by hanging them in a well."   Back to Basics (pg. 246)

After reading the above, my attitude about trying this beverage had changed from "I am so not into this" to "Bring it!"   The unusual list of ingredients sealed the deal:  sugar, molasses, cider vinegar, ground ginger, water.  Really?

So......my son and I carefully followed the instructions in the book and made up a big batch of switchel.  (The recipe makes a gallon.)  Sidenote:  When my husband came upstairs and witnessed the large quantity of switchel being produced, he wisely inquired why we had made a full batch.  Ummmm........cutting the recipe in half would have been a thought, wouldn't it?

I'm sure by now you're wondering whether this is, in fact, the beverage to slake all thirsts.  Well......here is the review direct from the mouth of my oldest:  "Because of the molasses, the taste is rather strong, but the sugar somewhat makes up for it."  When asked whether or not he would regularly like to have switchel as a beverage option, he said, "I would drink it sometimes."  I don't think I could give a better review than that.  I pretty much agree with him on all points.  It doesn't taste BAD, but it's not something I'd want to swill down in large amounts.  However, if I had been schlepping hay bales in the hot sun all day, who knows?  Maybe in that case that gallon of switchel would be swilled in no time flat.

I'll leave you with a photo of the switchel..........I had poured some into a mason jar and set it on our deck railing for this staged shot.  I don't have a great camera, so it did not turn out as glamorous as I'd hoped.  But.....it certainly gives you a visual image of hay-time switchel that you most likely did not have before reading this post.  (Yes, I do know that it closely resembles muddy water that could easily have been taken from a river, but I assure you that this jar contains 100% bona-fide hay-time switchel.)

One more funny thing about this story:  For some reason I'm having a really hard time getting my mouth to say the word "switchel."  In my brain, I want to say swizzle as in a swizzle stick you would find in an exotic adult beverage.  I have had to be corrected several times by my son on the pronunciation of this word.  Just wanted to forewarn you of this possibility in case you plan to use this new word in daily conversation.

Finally, my son would like you to know that "many drinks that are obsolete today have been drunken back in America's past, and possibly other countries, such as 'shrubs' and 'syllabubs'."  He encourages you to try to find a recipe for these two types of drinks.  We are lucky that our Back to Basics book has a recipe for both "Raspberry Shrub" (no trees or plants other than raspberries in this) and "Fruit Syllabub".  I am inclined to want to try the syllabub if for no other reason than that it would be very fun to slip that word into a conversation.  For example, "Gee, it was so steamy out today.  I'm so glad I had a nice cool glass of syllabub to help battle the heat.  Whew!!"  Wouldn't that be fun???