How to Make Benjamin Franklin’s Lost Booze Recipe.
Moonshiners Tim and Howard travel to Philadelphia to investigate Benjamin Franklin’s long-lost booze — a spruce beer drunk by the Continental Army — in the third episode of Moonshiners: American Spirit.
With help from Tickle, they recreate the 250-year-old recipe in a way that stays true to the ingredients that would have been available in Philly hundreds of years ago.
Benjamin Franklin’s Spruce Beer
Servings: Cask of 80 bottles
Step 1
Get one pot of spruce essence and 13 pounds of molasses (or the same amount of unrefined loaf sugar). Mix well together in 20 pints of hot water until it makes a foam.
Step 2
Then, pour it into the cask, fill with water, add a pint of good yeast, and stir it well together.
Step 3
Let it stand 2 or 3 days to ferment, then close the cask.
Step 4
After a few days, it will be ready to be put into tightly corked bottles. Leave them in a cool cellar for 10 to 12 days.
Step 5
The wait will be worth it — now it’s good to drink!
This will make you fly a kite in a lightning storm.
ht/ illustr8r
Mmm, sign me up!
I love that show, I get a real kick out of Tickle.
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” – Ben Franklin
Leaving the cask open for three days is guaranteed to allow in wild yeast and make it nasty/undrinkable. Appears that the recipe was lost for too long.
Whatever it is, I can use it. Fuggin’ Cork fire to south of me and the Tunnel fire to the north. I figure when ash is floating into the barn, time to call it a day.
And yeah, it’s ash. Thought it was cottonwood blossoms….but no. Ash.
Sending to my son who already makes moonshine. He’ll love it!
There is a popular belief that Franklin was indeed a bit of a pothead. This more than likely stems from the fact that Franklin owned a hemp paper mill, and a large one to boot. No doubt in my mind he enjoyed his weed. BTW, bck in those days most landowners grew hemp. It does have other beneficial uses other than getting high. One of Franklin’s beers would do me in.
@Beachmom Let us know if yr son makes Ben’s beer. I have a friend who is going to give it a go. We’ll see!
“one pot of spruce essence”, I like beer, but I’m not sure I would want it tasting like spruce. I’d try it, but I’d be skeptical.
I tried German oak beer Hefeweizen.
Never again. eeeegad! Ben beer sounds
like it may taste like turpentine….
Turpentine is tasty, but it needs a lime.
Totally kidding. Don’t drink turpentine.
Tim is turning into a PSA for not drinking. He looks like shit, has that puffy, waxy look of advanced alcoholism.
Ok, great. WTF is “spruce essence” and what unit of measurement is a “pot”?