Good cheer

Home-made wines, beers and soft drinks used to be part of every country household’s stores. These drinks were made from flowers, fruit, roots, grains and herbs. The normal equipment for the brewing or wine-making consisted of a stoneware crock with a lid; and fermentation was usually started by the old method of spreading yeast on a piece of toasted bread. After fermentation, the liquid was put into wooden casks, and, later, into bottles.

In winter, the home-made beer, cider or wine was often used heated and spiced, to ward off colds and chills. But for children, the treatment for colds was more usually a dose of a fruit or flower-flavoured syrup, diluted with water; this served to soothe a rough throat, and induce sleep, and it unintentionally gave a child the much-needed vitamins stored in the summer fruit.