On hot summer days, when the heat is intense and blistering, I always remember making hay when I was a child growing up on a farm. It was hot, hard work to bale hay, and then unload it off wagons and stack in the barn. I can remember we thought that it was a good day if we made 1,000 40-pound bales in a day. To keep the hay from the scratching me, I’d wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt that were quickly soaked with sweat. To stay hydrated, we took huge jugs of water or Kool-Aid out the fields and the barn.
A hundred-years-ago it was even more labor intensive to make hay. Most farmers used horses rather than tractors, and the hay wasn’t baled. Rather the loose hay was stacked on wagons, and then unloaded in the barn. I never thought about what they drank back then while working in the hot fields until I came across a recipe in a hundred-year-old cookbook published by a Springfield, Illinois newspaper for Harvest Drink.
According to the recipe, Harvest Drink is “relished in the hay-field.” It is made using vinegar, molasses, water, and ground ginger. I decided to give it is try.
I can’t say that I liked Harvest Drink. It is slightly tart with a molasses flavor. Maybe if I was making hay, and was hot and dehydrated, I would find it refreshing – but can totally understand why this beverage has gone out of fashion. We have a lot of better options now that are much tastier.
Here’s the original recipe:
This is a large recipe. I actually divided the amounts by 10. However, many of the ingredient amounts were unusual fractions, so when I updated the recipe, I kept the original amounts.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Harvest Drink
1/4 cup vinegar
1 cup molasses
10 cups water
approximately 1 tablespoon ground ginger
Combine vinegar, molasses, and water. Stir in the ground ginger; more or less may be used to taste. Serve very cold.
If you don’t like molasses or ginger, you can swap out any sweetener for the molasses and leave out the ginger. I love this made with organic sugar. It really helped me during our last three heat waves with that awful humidity! (air you can wear, as our local weather gal proclaims) : )
Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to try it with organic sugar. I think that don’t particularly like the taste of molasses in a drink.
I had to do a quick search and found vinegar does help dehydrate. I guess for the time the drink did help.
Thanks for researching. I hadn’t known that vinegar can help rehydrate.
We used to use apple cider vinegar and honey. Never heard about ginger but as I’m looking at the recipe now, I think grated fresh ginger would be just the thing. Keep it in the freezer and you can easily grate it into any recipe.
I like the idea of using honey instead of molasses. And, thanks for the tip about storing fresh ginger in the freezer. Over the years, I’ve often needed just a little fresh ginger, and purchased more than I needed. Inevitably the ginger would spoil before I used it all.
It has been proven that apple cider vinegar can help replenish electrolytes in your system….And molasses helps add potassium and breaks down differently in the body than sugar. Lot less expensive then todays gatoraids and “power” drinks. And probably more effective
They probably didn’t know the science behind it, but it sounds like people a hundred years ago made a drink that was very useful in helping people stay hydrated and healthy in hot weather.
This probably is quite good for you but … no thanks.
🙂 Why is it that foods that are good for us sometimes aren’t very tasty?
Luckily, there’s still a lot to choose from that tick all the right boxes!
Agree- there’s lots of options today.
In New England, we call this switchel or haymaker’s switchel! It is sweetened with honey, or maple syrup, or molasses, and we use cider vinegar. Always ginger. It is quite refreshing, the original sports drink to prevent dehydration.
Your comment led me to google “switchel,” and I was surprised that the Washington Post even had an article about switchel which included a recipe:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/05/16/switchel-history/
This drink is clearly more popular than I realized when I wrote the post.
Here’s my recipe Sheryl! https://vintagekitchen.org/2019/08/20/haymakers-switchel/
Wow, I must have missed that post. Thanks for sharing.I’m going to have to try your recipe -and the rum option sounds like a good suggestion. I think that you identified the issue with my recipe in your post, “Now, there are some pretty horrible switchel recipes out there, most of them contain way too much molasses.” 🙂
Hope you enjoy it!
wow that certainly sounds … interesting :=)
sherry
It’s probably a healthy way for people doing strenuous activities in hot weather to get hydrated.
This sounds like the beginning of a sports drink or one to hydrate oneself :)..
Yes, it seems like Harvest Drink was a similar concept.
I’m with you on this one. I suppose it would have been a help if tired, hot and dehydrated whilst haying or working hard.
I’ll be honest, I’m still fascinated that coffee has been favored for centuries. I love the aroma, but not the taste. 😊
Even though some people don’t like the taste, coffee apparently has stood the test of time. Maybe it’s the caffeine.