Carbonated Drinks of the Victorian Era

Long before the Pepsi generation, there were homemade Effervescing Fruit Drinks, as described in the 1860 Miss Beecher's domestic receiptbook: designed as a supplement to her Treatise on domestic economy.

If you're wondering what cold drinks Munsonvillers in Bryony's time enjoy, read below:

                   Effervescing Fruit Drinks

Very fine drinks for summer are prepared by putting strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries into good vinegar and then straining it off and adding a new supply of fruit until enough flavor is secured. Keep the vinegar bottled. Dissolve half a teaspoonful or less of saleratus, or soda, in a tumbler with very little water until all the lumps are out. Then fill the tumbler two-thirds full of water and then add the fruit vinegar. If several are to drink, put the soda, or saleratus, into the pitcher, and then put the fruit vinegar into each tumbler, and pour the alkali water from the pitcher into each tumbler, as each person is ready to drink it, as delay spoils it.