Unlike the famous rum punches of the English American world beverages seem pretty sparse for the average French Canadian. Water and milk appear to be the staples but other beverages were consumed with regularity.
Pehr kalm mentioned in the 1740’s that the Canadian habitants drank water and spruce beer and gives their recipe and methods for making it at home. He also mentions that they have wine but that it was “quite dear”.
Brandy was included in the military ration and was a staple to the habitant and was usually eaten with bread and onion soup in the morning, sometimes it was simply eaten by dipping bread in it.
Other beverages available to the habituant were coffee and chocolate but these would have been more expensive luxury items and probably didn’t factor in a large way into the average habituant’s diet.
Although certainly a luxury item spices would likely not have been unknown to your typical Canadian farmer.
Refined cane sugar from the Caribbean would have had to be imported and would have been almost exclusively consumed by the upper class. Maple sugar was produced locally by Indigenous people since time immemorial and Canadians since the 17th century.
I mention these things because my wife recently found a wonderful Parks Canada reference to rosolio!
To say I was excited is an understatement. It is difficult enough to find mixed drinks in an English context (though they are there if you dig into it) but seemed hopeless to me to find any in a French context as I do not read French let alone the archaic French of the 18th century.
Rosolio was a refreshing sweetened and spiced brandy drink. I’m assuming it was meant to be drunk at room temperature but I see no reason it couldn’t be chilled or heated depending on your needs and tastes at the time.
The recipe developed by historians,Yvon Desloges and Marc Lafrance, is quite a simple. It mixes maple sugar, cloves, peppercorns, coriander seed, cinnamon, and anise seeds. The spices and sugar is mixed with brandy, allowed to infuse into the liquor for some time, strained and then it is ready to drink!
I followed their recipe pretty closely. I only omitted the anise seeds. In addition to their instructions I covered the bowl to keep out dust and cat hair and stirred it a few times over the course of four hours to make sure the sugar dissolved completely.
The result was great! The maple sugar darkened the brandy, the spices ,which I thought wouldn’t be enough, really infused into the drink well.
Rosolio is quite sweet, and very spicy. It’s akin to a mulled cider but straight liquor so be careful! I did water some down with cool water, I’ve read that was a common practice with brandy and it mellowed the drink out considerably.
The first link below is the Parks Canada recipe, try it out!
https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/gourmand-gourmet/recette-recipe93
Other work cited:
Desloges, Yvon. “Daily Life Foodways.” Virtual Museum of New France. Canadian Museum of History. Accessed April 30, 2020. https://www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/daily-life/foodways
Pehr kalm mentioned in the 1740’s that the Canadian habitants drank water and spruce beer and gives their recipe and methods for making it at home. He also mentions that they have wine but that it was “quite dear”.
Brandy was included in the military ration and was a staple to the habitant and was usually eaten with bread and onion soup in the morning, sometimes it was simply eaten by dipping bread in it.
Other beverages available to the habituant were coffee and chocolate but these would have been more expensive luxury items and probably didn’t factor in a large way into the average habituant’s diet.
Although certainly a luxury item spices would likely not have been unknown to your typical Canadian farmer.
Refined cane sugar from the Caribbean would have had to be imported and would have been almost exclusively consumed by the upper class. Maple sugar was produced locally by Indigenous people since time immemorial and Canadians since the 17th century.
I mention these things because my wife recently found a wonderful Parks Canada reference to rosolio!
To say I was excited is an understatement. It is difficult enough to find mixed drinks in an English context (though they are there if you dig into it) but seemed hopeless to me to find any in a French context as I do not read French let alone the archaic French of the 18th century.
Rosolio was a refreshing sweetened and spiced brandy drink. I’m assuming it was meant to be drunk at room temperature but I see no reason it couldn’t be chilled or heated depending on your needs and tastes at the time.
The recipe developed by historians,Yvon Desloges and Marc Lafrance, is quite a simple. It mixes maple sugar, cloves, peppercorns, coriander seed, cinnamon, and anise seeds. The spices and sugar is mixed with brandy, allowed to infuse into the liquor for some time, strained and then it is ready to drink!
I followed their recipe pretty closely. I only omitted the anise seeds. In addition to their instructions I covered the bowl to keep out dust and cat hair and stirred it a few times over the course of four hours to make sure the sugar dissolved completely.
The result was great! The maple sugar darkened the brandy, the spices ,which I thought wouldn’t be enough, really infused into the drink well.
Rosolio is quite sweet, and very spicy. It’s akin to a mulled cider but straight liquor so be careful! I did water some down with cool water, I’ve read that was a common practice with brandy and it mellowed the drink out considerably.
The first link below is the Parks Canada recipe, try it out!
https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/gourmand-gourmet/recette-recipe93
Other work cited:
Desloges, Yvon. “Daily Life Foodways.” Virtual Museum of New France. Canadian Museum of History. Accessed April 30, 2020. https://www.historymuseum.ca/virtual-museum-of-new-france/daily-life/foodways
