#switchel

Haymaker's Punch (Vegan)

Mucus buster switchel:

- 8 cups water (2 liters)

- 1 lemon and 1 orange

- 2 cinnamon sticks

- 2 anise stars

- about a dozen black peppercorns

- a dozen whole allspice

- a dozen whole cloves

- 3-4 Oz of a liquid sweetener (103.5 ml)

- one small but decent sized piece of sliced ginger, sliced up into coins. Dried/ground ginger can also be used, somewhere around 1-2 tablespoons (7-14 grams)

- 1 cup fruit (dried dates, in my case)

- some mint leaves

- 1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar (120 ml)

Bring the water to a boil. While that's going on, juice the citrus and try to peel or zest it so you don't have the pith. Throw peel and juice in with other ingredients. Put on low heat. Whisking will help ingredients incorporate, especially if using dried ginger. You may start serving once it has an aroma.

This can be served hot or cold, and some like to put a small amount of rum in their switchel. You can also remove the whole spices and blend the switchel after it has cooked for an hour or so so it has a more homogeneous texture.

Reasons for adding the vinegar are that some vinegars, including Balsamic vinegar and apple cider vinegar, contain electrolytes and can help clear phlegm. Similarly, ginger and other warming spices can help with mucus and a sore throat.

What sweetener you use varies. I used a waffle house syrup packet and some date syrup. Traditionally, you'd use molasses, maple syrup, birch syrup, or something else along those lines. The citrus and additional fruit aren't necessary. The basic switchel is just water, ginger, vinegar, and sweetner. The citrus helps if you're feeling ill, and the additional fruit is just more flavor. I've seen blueberries and blackberries added most often, but you could even try things like peaches or figs. Go wild.

If you're unsure about your vinegar tolerance, I'd recommend adding all the other ingredients to the pot and letting it start to get an aroma, then taking a cup of that and adding a teaspoon of your vinegar. If you enjoy it, add a teaspoon of vinegar per cup of water (8 total), and gradually increase until you get your desired flavor. If you accidentally added too much, either add in more water or more sweetener. If you like, you can even try mixing this with club soda (as is common for shrubs, a similar kind of vinegar based drink).

It's a super basic drink despite what some the recipes might say (I'll include my process at the bottom) and it burns in a way that provides sensory input, which is great. I don't drink booze anymore, but i definitely have my hot drink, cold drink, enrichment drink, sour thing, spicey thing, salty thing, sweet thing.. and this is a neat little part of that for me. My switchel:

3-6 tbsp apple cider vinegar depending on how burny I'd like it to be

1 tsp ground ginger (I'm not grating fresh ginger, fuck that)

3 tbsp fancy molasses (maple could work too, honey would probably work but I'm deathly allergic)

pinch of salt (idk if this is required but its optional and i have POTS so the salt is going in) ok so you mix all that with like a half cup of warm water and shake the fuck out of it. Then I fill the rest of the bottle with apple juice, cold water, cold tea, cranberry gingerale, or whatever the fuck else I have sitting around. Recipe says like 1-2 cups and I'm guessing its about a litre but like.. you really get to ADHD yolo this part.

Then, if I feel fancy I experiment more to this by adding like lemon juice or clove or pumpkin spice or whatever else I want.

Switchel also called Haymakers Punch, was drunk by farmers during the summer time, and is composed of Water, Apple Cider Vinegar, Maple Syrup, and Ground Ginger.

Here's my attempt, which ended up tasting pretty good (although the vinegar is quite strong.)

The recipe for a 500ml portion entails 2 cups (470ml) Water, 0.1 cup (23.5ml) Apple Cider Vinegar, 0.25 teaspoon (1.4g) Powdered Ginger, and 0.2 cups (47.5ml) Maple Syrup. Shaken thouroughly, and Iced.

This week's "Spring has Sprung" kitchen experiments included: a violet and blueberry switchel (drinking vinegar), a first attempt at making violet cookies, and evergreen beer!

The violet cookies tasted good but didn't exactly go to plan - I tried to recreate violet shapes with the petals on top of the cookies and then the cookies spread out while baking so it didn't work out. (lol) I will try freezing them before baking next time.

Both the switchel and evergreen beer will take a couple of weeks before they are drinkable but I am very excited to try them out when they are ready.

The artist had a minor bout of cold today and somehow managed to get rid of it by making his own cup of acidulated water and drinking it. After brainstorming for an idea for Hugs and Tugs Wednesday in a nearby Starbucks, he came up with the idea of sharing the recipe with you.