Last week, one day, JoAnne Wilkins sent me a note and asked if I liked homemade root beer and would I like to try some. Well, about the only soda I drink is Root Beer and having had fond memories of the old days on Fairfield Ridge when Mother used to make some in the summer, I just couldn't decline the offer.
JoAnne tells me she learned how to make the homemade root beer from Blanche Wilkins. JoAnne uses some special old glass bottles that she has had for years, so I will have to make sure I return this one to her. I told Jo that my mother used to use regular canning jars with the red rubber gasket on them, which surprised her, because she wondered how they sealed. I don't actually remember how my mother made the root beer, but have a very vague memory of seeing the canning jars sitting on the floor behind our old Home Comfort kitchen cooking stove. I also remember that occasionally one would pop. I know that even back in those days they had a little capping machine, but we usually made do with what we had.
I do know that the root beer had to sit a while and I believe we brought it down cellar to store (but not for long) and take out several jars during haying and hang them in the water in our milk cooler as we didn't have a refrigerator. We didn't drink it during the day when we were working in the hay fields, but after milking at night, it was kind of our treat after a hard days work.
I went on the Internet to see if I could refresh my memory a bit, but it wasn't much help, although I did find this link that did give a recipe:
http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Old-fashioned%20root%20beer (http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Old-fashioned%20root%20beer)
and I also found a place that had a kit for kids to make their own root beer, which might make for an interesting project for some mother who finds they are getting bored at the following link:
http://scientificsonline.com/Product.asp?pn=3053212&sid=google&cm_mmc=google-_-cpc-_-edmu-_-homemaderootbeer2&bhcd2=1217250081 (http://scientificsonline.com/Product.asp?pn=3053212&sid=google&cm_mmc=google-_-cpc-_-edmu-_-homemaderootbeer2&bhcd2=1217250081)
Of course the thing that I found that was the most interesting is the following short video on U Tube about Root Beer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVrDUD6Shwc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVrDUD6Shwc)
Now I haven't tasted the root beer that JoAnne brought me yet as my grandson is coming up to help me mow the lawn, so tomorrow night we will celebrate our day of haying with a nice big bottle of root beer, just like the old days.