[Sca-cooks] Any references to peaches being used in period brewing?

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

And don't forget.... peach butter:

"Peach Butter. 
Take pound for pound of peaches and sugar; cook peaches alone until they  
become soft, then put in one-half the sugar, and stir for one-half an hour: 
then  the remainder of the sugar, and stir half an hour. Season with cloves 
and  cinnamon. 

Peach Butter. 
Take pound for pound of peaches and sugar; cook peaches until they are  
soft, then put in one-half of the sugar and cook slowly for half an hour,  
stirring often; then the rest of the sugar, and cook and stir for an hour and a  
half. Season with cloves and cinnamon."
 
....
 
Peach Butter. 
Use a twenty-gallon kettle. Boil twenty gallons of apple cider down to ten  
gallons, skimming well while boiling. Dip out while hot into stone or 
wooden  vessels; it must not cool in the kettle. Take five bushels of peaches, as 
ripe  as can be handled; wash, but do not pare them; cut away the 
sun-cooked or black  side; boil to a slush, stirring from first to last, using the 
boiled cider to  keep it thin. The cider must be added hot, and the mass kept 
constantly boiling,  and continued for five hours after the last of the 
cooked peaches and boiled  cider are added. Five bushels of peaches cooked 
should use the ten gallons of  boiled cider. A few minutes before removing from 
the fire add eight pounds of  granulated sugar, four tablespoonfuls of ground 
cinnamon, two tablespoonfuls  each of essence of lemon and essence of 
cinnamon. We find ready sale for this at  one dollar a gallon, and it will keep 
for a year. The above quantity will stir  off from thirteen to sixteen 
gallons of peach butter. A. R. Baxley,  Humboldt
 
The Peach: The Kansas Peach 1899
edited by William H.  Barnes
http://books.google.com/books?id=kcNBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA153&dq=peach+cider&hl=en&
sa=X&ei=VlxRU9ivF6ri8gH6z4GQDg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

I  think this is due for a revival at some cutting edge restaurant.
 
Otherwise, it's probably worth noting that this book entirely devoted to  
the peach does not mention peach cider. This said, there are nineteenth 
century  references to it:
 
"Peach cider sold then at Parramatta, for nine-pence a quart, but ten  
gallons of cider made one gallon of brandy, several degrees above proof; so as I 
 had Doctor Balmain's  still by me, ever since I had bought"
http://books.google.com/books?id=wvI5AAAAcAAJ&dq=peach%20cider&pg=PA272#v=on
epage&q&f=false
 
Missionaries noted "cidre de peche" in Australia:
_http://books.google.com/books?id=OdU7AAAAcAAJ&dq=%22cidre%20de%20peche%22&p
g=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?id=OdU7AAAAcAAJ&dq="cidre%20de%20peche"&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false) 
 
 
 
Ironically, this item on fruit butters mentions in passing that one could  
just as well make the underlying cider with peaches:
http://books.google.com/books?id=jzLiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA475&dq=peach+cider&hl=en&
sa=X&ei=VlxRU9ivF6ri8gH6z4GQDg&ved=0CG0Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
Still, the idea seems to have remained a novelty:
 
"The exquisite and various flavor of the North American peach, in the most  
favorable situations, and the ease with which it is propagated in such 
places,  give rise to great solicitude, that nice and careful experiments should 
be made  of the quality of the clear fermented liquor it would yield. 
Whether the attempt  would succeed best, if the peach were treated like the 
grape, the apple, and the  pear, in making wine, cider, and perry, or whether it 
would best succeed, if the  fruit were treated in the manner of the currant, 
experience would  determine"
http://books.google.com/books?id=_40bAQAAMAAJ&dq=peach%20cider&pg=PA684#v=on
epage&q&f=false
 
 
 
And while we're at it, what about melons? "very excellent cider may be made 
 from melons."
http://books.google.com/books?id=h0RFAAAAYAAJ&dq=peach%20cider&pg=PA159#v=on
epage&q&f=false

(Now THAT sounds like it could be a modern summer hit.)



Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

Stumbling through  history towards  beer
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2014/04/stumbling-through-history-towards-beer.
html







In  a message dated 4/17/2014 9:21:17 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
StefanliRous at gmail.com writes:
I have a good article on period peaches that  was submitted to me for the 
Florilegium. The original purpose was to research  peach use in medieval 
brewing.