Uncle Smokey here this week to share our old family favorite beverage for hay season, and no, it isn’t beer. It was something my Grandma made all summer long. She called it switchel, and summertime was switchel time.
Switchel time because it’s haying time folks! Yep, there are ample hay burners (horses) here in the Southwest, and they sure need their hay. Cattle need hay too. After all, Arizona was once famous for cattle as one of the “Five C’s.”
What is Switchel?
Switchel the way our family makes it is basically water with added apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and ginger tea. Switchel is great for relieving thirst, rehydrating hard workers, and getting the hay dust out of your throat.
It does have many different names, and more variations than you can shake a stick at. It’s also called switchel, switzel, swizzle, switchy, ginger-water, or haymaker’s punch.
Switchel Basis
The same switchel-like drink as Grandma made has been popular with haymakers and summer harvesters around the world for at least 6000 years.
Back in ancient Sumerian times you would take some sour barley beer (basically beer that fermented too long and turned into vinegar), dilute it heavily with water, add honey to make it palatable, and drink this to stay hydrated as you got in the harvest. In Asia, soured ginger beer was used to cut the water.
Right up until modern times, water was often treated with “sour beer” or wine to make it better to drink. If you have ever considered ancient plumbing and sanitation systems, then you understand why this was done.
Fast forward a number of centuries and we get to the Columbian Interchange. Peoples and cultures mixed all around the globe. There was massive mixing of foods, and ideas,,,, and germs too, but Jared Diamond covered that well in “Guns, Germs, and Steel.”
Switchel Birth
In New England in the Seventeenth Century, the season was too short for ample grain production, so no barley beer. But you could use the ample apple harvest to make apple cider beer. Commonly called hard cider, this beer was basically apple cider that went fizzy as the yeasts started turning it into an alcoholic beverage. When that went “too far,” you got apple cider vinegar, basically “sour apple beer.”
Another thing that had short season in New England was flowers for bees. Bee keeping was mostly for warmer areas but there sure were enough maple trees for maple sap for making maple syrup! (Birch sap too in a pinch.) Sweetness was not lacking in human life.
In Asia they use ginger (Zingiber officinale) for tea, cooking, and beer. In New England there is a very similar plant known as wild ginger (Asarum canadense). If you have sme of either species, you can boil some of that nice ginger “root” into a tea, add more water with some vinegar to make the water safe, add some maple syrup to make it sweet, and switchel as we know it today was born. Water, apple cider vinegar, ginger, and maple syrup.
There are many variations on this switchel, depending on where you you lived in the colonies. Molasses instead of maple syrup was used in much of much of the colonies, but not if you were Quaker, they would use honey or “maple tree syrup.”
Modern Switchel
You can now buy a super sweet corporation style processed food drink called “switchel” in supermarkets. Full of preservatives some of it, and pasteurized too because that’s what the FDA used to demand. And don’t forget some dyes to make it a pleasing color to the average consumer. They even make these drinks now with all manner of trendy healthy additives, but I like the plain and simple kind made at home. Plus it costs MUCH less to make your own.
Switchel and Hay Season
Yes I grew up on a farm, and yes we did have to get in hay in summer to feed the livestock in winter. You’ve heard that old saying – “You need to make hay while the sun is shining.” We’d joke that we were stacking sunshine to keep the cows warm in winter. Except that often we were raking and baling by moonlight, racing against time and thundershowers as the wind rose, the lightening came closer, and the thunder roared in your ears. If you haven’t heard the thunder so loud that your ears ring after and you can’t hear anything else, and you have to check that the tractor is still running – well you haven’t been farming or ranching in open country in the summer.
We originally did have an cab on the tractor, and we did have air conditioning, right up until it broke, then Dad wasn’t going to waste money of “frivolities” that were going to make us “soft.” In reality it was no doubt better without air conditioning. We didn’t keep shocking our bodies by going from 75F to 105F. We were at just one solid temperature all day long, and that was HOT.
Switchel Stories
The switchel we grew up with was supposed to be better for you than plain water when you sweat a great deal – like in haying season. Turns out this “old wives tale” was very accurate, but more on that below. I just thought it was a way to help make water taste better.
Switchel is awesome if you are haying. It is sweet, and tart, and really cuts the dust in your throat. It goes down smooth, and you can drink gallons of it. Not to worry, you are going to sweat it out your pores, not out your kidneys, so Dad still got a full days work out of us boys.
How to Make Switchel
In a gallon jar mix 1/2 cup raw apple cider vinegar (not the pasteurized kind) 1/2 cup real maple syrup (or raw unpasteurized honey) 1 Tablespoon cut and dried ginger root 1 gallon of water
Boil water to make a cup of this very strong ginger tea. Let it steep for at least 5 minutes.
Put the syrup and cider and cider in the gallon jar.
Add the tea and water,
Stir.
Chill if you want, but don’t chill it too cold it you are running it out to the haymakers – Grandma taught me that it can make them sick.
Uncle Smokey done – and now over to our editor for the science.
Why Switchel
Moving to the the science of switchel. Let’s break that down and look at the components of switchel.
Not Water Alone
As it turns out you can drink too much plain water. Sorry we did not mention this in our earlier article about drinking ample water.
Yes, plenty of water is needed for optimal heath – but. But human bodies seek balance. Your body needs the minerals on each side of your intestinal wall to be equal. If the water in your gut lacks minerals, the minerals can flow out of your blood and into your intestine, making you even more dehydrated! So yes, electrolytes are needed. And, yes water alone can dehydrate you. Go ahead and search the web if you don’t believe me. We fact check our work here, and I am a scientist, and I obsess about being truthful (yes, on the spectrum somewhere).
Electrolytes are minerals. Humans need electrolytes including sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, and magnesium. These are physiologically needed for the basic functions of your body, including muscles, and nerves, and your brain too! Note that table sugar is not an electrolyte.
Electrolytes
Electrolytes are nutrients or chemicals in your body that help it perform specific functions, like regulating your heart beat or telling your legs it’s time to get moving. But after undergoing intense physical exertion (like getting in hay), getting sick, eating a poor diet or even taking certain medications, electrolytes imbalance can occur. Signs that your electrolytes need some replenishing include constantly feeling thirsty, dizzy, frequent headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, and even nausea.
Switchel contains both maple syrup and apple cider vinegar – both rich in naturally occurring electrolytes, including potassium, magnesium, and traces of manganese, boron and other essential electrolytes not found in store bought drinks.
Apple Cider Vinegar
Be sure to use unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, or better yet, some homemade Apple Scrap vinegar. This is where some powerful benefits come in.
Apple cider vinegar helps in balancing the body’s pH levels, protecting the heart, and maintaining levels of blood sugar. Best of all, the unpasteurized vinegar aids the digestive process by promoting the growth of “good” gut bacteria.
Ginger
The ginger that makes up a key part of switchel is now shown to be a natural inflammation reducer. Inflammation causes physical symptoms like skin problems and digestive issues. Maybe the “reducing skin problems” is why farm kids who drink switchel tend to not have bad acne.
Additionally, because ginger reduces inflammation (which often leads to pain), ginger could be considered a pain fighter. One study found that consuming a small amount of ginger is more effective at reducing pain symptoms and inflammation than painkillers.
Maple Syrup
On top of electrolytes, maple syrup is one of the best natural sweeteners you can use. It is minimally processed – just boiled to reduce water content. Maple syrup has been shown to affect blood sugar levels less than regular table sugar.
Switchel is Good & Good For You
So yes, not only does this drink taste good, there is some science to show that it is good for you. But what if you don’t like apple cider vinegar? Or maybe can’t have ginger, because some people can’t. Try the Hibiscus Drink we discussed last week! Or any of the herbal teas we mentioned for National Iced Tea Month? Or maybe use citrus instead? I make this citrus cooler using fresh or dried citrus. Dried citrus you ask? Yep. Slice it thin and dry it like I discussed in How to Dry Peppers.
Citrus Cooler
Don’t like the whole apple cider vinegar thing? Many people don’t. Instead you could use some of the citrus that is so abundant in the Southwest and make this simple refreshing drink.
1 lemon, sliced in circles 1 lime, sliced in circles 2 Tablespoons honey 1 quart water Combine and chill.
Serve a few cups at a time and simply keep adding more honey and water. You will be surprised at the number of servings this will make! Keeps for weeks in the refrigerator. Hot or cold, honey can add a delightfully unique flavor to a drink – any drink.
Additional Options
Just in case you don’t like switchel – we offer many other electrolyte rich drink options. I will try to remember to update this page every so often.
Father Kino’s Herbs
The last few copies of this out-of-print award winning Southwestern book are now for sale. Father Kino’s Herbs: Growing and Using Them Today The review says:
“Award-winning garden writer Dr. Jacqueline A. Soule has pulled together a fascinating book on the life of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino and some of the plants that he brought to Southern Arizona and northwestern Sonora, and area called the Pimeria Alta.”
This link is to our book sales site. The profits from the sale go to the local Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute. We hope you will help support this great Southwest non-profit!
You can learn more at the Kino Heritage Society. (.org)
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