1923 was the third year of prohibition in the U.S. I have no idea which five fruits were in Hay’s Five Fruit, or what it tasted like, but I’m intrigued that it can replace “wines and other flavors formerly used in cooking.”
1923 Hay’s Five Fruit Advertisement
Ha! There were probably more than a few who purchased it in hopes of fermenting it – you know for health and cooking!! hehe!
You had to be creative during prohibition. 🙂
I’m sure they were using a lot of substitutes then!
It’s interesting how this advertiser positioned the product to fill a void created by prohibition.
Very resourceful!
The ingredients were pineapple, orange, lemon, raspberry, and strawberry, mixed with sugar, red food coloring, and sodium benzoate. A 1930s cocktail book gave a recipe for gin punch using grapefruit juice, gin, and Five Fruits or Grenadine.
Sounds kind of like Hawaiian punch.
Apparently, since it had sugar and could be used in place of Grenadine. I don’t see how it would work for cooking other than in some type of dessert or mocktail, but then, I don’t know how they used wine or other alcohol in cooking then.
Since I was on a reading jag of old anti drink books, I got the impression that many women used wine in making sauces for puddings etc. and thereby sending many a young man down the path to drunkeness
I’ve read some articles in magazines that were written right before prohibition, and they were extremely negative on alcohol – and, as you said, believed that young people could very easily go down the path to drunkeness.
It does sound similar.
Thanks for find the ingredients and a recipe using Five Fruits. It sounds like sodium benzoate has been around for a long time. I think that it’s still used, so I guess that it probably is considered fairly safe – though I try to avoid foods with ingredient lists that include chemical names.
Very interesting ad, Sheryl. This was during the Prohibition so there were probably a fair number of cooks who used it.
Cooks probably saw it as a good alternative to wine.