What to drink : The blue book of beverages

In Short

Bertha E. L. Stockbridge presents a comprehensive 1920 manual dedicated entirely to non-alcoholic hospitality. Writing directly to the modern homemaker facing the sudden legal loss of spirits, Stockbridge bridges 19th-century domestic traditions and 20th-century convenience. The volume offers hundreds of recipes ranging from soda fountain favorites, party punches, and fruit flips to restorative invalid drinks and farmhand refreshments. It survives as a charming, practical artifact of American culinary adaptability during Prohibition, detailing how to substitute presentation, high-quality glassware, and complex fruit syrups for alcohol.

The Story

The text functions as a structured guide to mastering the art of the temperance host. Stockbridge opens by addressing the modern housewife, framing Prohibition not as a sacrifice, but as an opportunity to revive the domestic arts of earlier generations. She reassures readers that crafting syrups, vinegars, and fruit shrubs is simple, even for those living in cramped city apartments with limited storage space.

From this foundational advice, the book moves systematically through categories of refreshing beverages. It begins with basic fruitades and lemonades, utilizing everyday pantry ingredients alongside leftover juices from canned fruits. It then advances to elaborate party bowls, introducing punches, cups, and non-alcoholic cocktails designed to recreate the ceremonial flair of high-society entertaining without spirits. Ingredients like grenadine, white grape juice, sparkling cider, Apollinaris water, and crushed mint take center stage, brought together in shaker cups and strained into carefully chosen glassware.

As the text progresses, Stockbridge explores richer, more substantial concoctions. She details egg flips, milk shakes, ice cream floats, and soda fountain specialties like phosphates and cobblers. Specialty hot drinks—such as dripped Java and Mocha coffee blends, spiced cocoa, and tea infusions—receive equal care, alongside an extensive section on house-made syrups designed to be bottled for future emergencies.

Toward its conclusion, the manual widens its scope beyond casual entertaining. Stockbridge includes dedicated chapters on sickroom nutrition, prescribing soothing teas, rice waters, toast water, and homemade koumiss for invalids and children. She also outlines hearty field drinks like ginger-switchel and oatmeal water to sustain farm laborers. The final chapters embrace frozen hospitality, presenting detailed instructions for sundaes, rich dessert sauces, parfaits, granits, and fruit ices. The work closes with an extensive alphabetical index, leaving the hostess fully equipped to serve any guest across all seasons and occasions.

How It Unfolds

Preparing the pantry Stockbridge instructs the reader on stocking essential syrups and vinegars, selecting dainty linen, and acquiring clear, polished glassware to elevate simple drinks.

Crafting fruitades and punches The recipes begin with simple lemonades and fruit juices, rapidly expanding into complex punch bowls layered with Apollinaris water, tea infusions, fresh berries, and shaved ice.

Shaking flips and mocktails The author introduces cocktail shakers to the home kitchen, combining fruit syrups, egg whites, and carbonated waters to mimic classic tavern drinks like flips, cobblers, and clover leaf cocktails.

Formulating foundational syrups Detailed directions explain how to boil, clarify, and bottle plain sugar syrups, spiced fruit vinegars, rich chocolate, and concentrated coffee extracts for quick assembly.

Mixing milk shakes and eggnoggs The focus shifts to rich, highly nutritious drinks, using top milk, whipped egg whites, malted milk, and syrups to create sustaining floats and shakes suitable for quick lunches.

Restoring the sick and laboring The narrative turns to therapeutic brewing, offering precise recipes for linseed tea, prune water, rice milk, and field drinks intended to hydrate harvesters.

Freezing the finale The book concludes with cold confections, detailing hot maple and chocolate caramel sundae sauces, egg-rich parfaits, green tea ice cream, and tart fruit ices.

The People

The Hostess of To-day The central figure and primary audience of the book. Facing the social shifts of Prohibition, she seeks to entertain with elegance and confidence despite the absence of alcohol. She desires practical, economical methods to produce delicious drinks without exhausting her time or apartment storage space.

Our Grandmothers Invoked as historical role models who possessed deep household knowledge of canning, preserving, and brewing. Their traditional recipes for shrubs, vinegars, and medicinal tisanes serve as the inspiration for the modern hostess's kitchen.

The Mixer of Drinks An implicit figure of professional expertise referenced throughout the text. His commercial recipes for clarified syrups, foam-topped egg flips, and balanced soda fountain drinks are adapted by Stockbridge for everyday household use.

The Patient and the Harvester Peripheral figures representing those in need of specialized liquid nourishment. The patient requires gentle, easily digested liquids like toast water or rice gruel, while the field harvester requires thirst-quenching, stamina-building drinks like oatmeal water and ginger-switchel.

In Its Own Voice

"Make prohibition Paradise enow."

An anonymous parody of Omar Khayyam introduces the book's lighthearted spirit, swapping wine for ice cream cones and lemonade.

"The hostess of to-day will be called upon to serve drinks in her home more than formerly, I imagine, and it were well to go back to the habits and customs of our grandmothers..."

Stockbridge frames her recipe collection as both a response to legal temperance and a return to traditional domestic craft.

"Who would not rather use a doylie with a button-holed edge, spotlessly clean, than one heavily embroidered which will require three times the labor to launder?"

The author offers pragmatic advice on hospitality, favoring simple cleanliness and ease over ostentatious display.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book addresses the cultural disruption of the Eighteenth Amendment by reinventing the ritual of American hospitality. It argues that social gathering does not depend on alcohol to feel celebratory or refined. Through careful presentation, proper glassware, and sophisticated flavor pairings, the home host can maintain a sense of occasion. Stockbridge reclaims non-alcoholic drinks from the realm of childhood treats, elevating them into craft beverages that require skill, balance, and proper technique. The book also underscores a philosophy of domestic thrift, showing how to transform canned fruit juices, leftover tea, and basic kitchen staples into impressive social offerings.

Why Read It Today

What to Drink offers a fascinating slice of culinary history, serving as a direct window into early 1920s domestic life at the precise moment Prohibition took effect. Modern mixologists, zero-proof enthusiasts, and social historians will find it surprisingly relevant, full of timeless techniques for balancing sweet, tart, and effervescent elements without alcohol.

Reading the text feels like sitting down with a sensible, highly organized aunt who takes genuine pride in household efficiency. Stockbridge writes with warm, encouraging clarity, demystifying processes like clarifying sugar syrup or whipping egg whites into drink toppings.

The reader must navigate period-specific quirks, such as archaic medicinal practices—including boiled toast water for illness—and retro ingredients like acid phosphate or Florida water. Some fruit names and measurements reflect early 20th-century conventions, and the sheer repetition of syrup bases can feel uniform over long stretches. Yet the book's earnest enthusiasm for simple hospitality, fine glassware, and thoughtful preparation remains thoroughly charming and practically useful today.