Fruit Juices

Old World fruits were introduced in America by European settlers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Spanish introduced citrus trees, such as lemons, limes, and oranges, into Florida and the Caribbean, and the fruits were regularly exported to British North America. The English, French, and German colonists introduced other fruits, including apples, cherries, plums, and pears. Native fruits, such as elderberries, cranberries, and huckleberries, rounded out the early American fruit basket. In addition to being eaten fresh, these fruits were pressed or squeezed into juice. Apples, lemons, and oranges were the main juice fruits, but currants, grapes, peaches, pineapples, plums, raspberries, and strawberries also were used for juice. Beginning in the nineteenth century, the most common way of serving fruit juice was with added sugar and water in the form of “ades,” such as appleade, lemonade, orangeade, and strawberryade. These juices were sometimes served ice-cold and called “sherbet.” For a lighter drink, a few spoonfuls of these sweetened juices were stirred into cold water. By the nineteenth century, a wide range of fruit juices was used to flavor ice cream and soda fountain drinks.