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Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson

In previous posts, we've covered Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits, Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production, and Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation.

I realized I should take a step back and talk briefly about how baijiu developed and where it stands today. This information was gathered from the book Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits by Derek Sandhaus and from my trip to the Luzhou Laojiao distillery in Luzhou where Ming River Baijiu is produced.

One interesting (but honestly not super relevant to the rest of this post) fact that stood out to me (as I'm doing some global drink history research) is that in other ancient cultures, people drank alcohol (beer, wine, and later spirits mixed into water) because drinking water was generally unsafe. I just finished the book Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol and it's full of hilarious insults directed at "water drinkers." In China, however, there was less of a need for the disinfecting power of alcohol because people drank boiled water and tea.

In more relevant information, the development of qu, the cluster of grains inoculated with yeast, bacteria, and mold I wrote about in my last post, dates back to the Han Dynasty of 206BC-220AD. Alcohol made from qu is called jiu and grain beer made with qu is called huangjiu ('yellow alcohol'). Until baijiu was modernized, huangjiu was considered a more premier beverage. Today you can still purchase huangjiu in China.

Distillation technology was probably imported to China from the Middle East or the Mongols (anywhere from 960 to 1368), and the word 'baijiu' simply means 'white alcohol' (distilled alcohol).

Many thousands of small distilleries existed (and apparently more than 10,000 still exist!) in China, making spirits with regional grains. When the communists took power beginning in 1949, they nationalized, industrialized, and upgraded the technology in the industry: proper techniques were codified (having been mostly house secrets at each distillery previous) and quality control was upgraded. Individual distilleries were formed into large collective companies.

In the 1960s, the distillers at Luzhou Laojiao (the company that I visited) trained many other distillers how to make their style of baijiu – strong aroma baijiu. Today this style accounts for about 75% of baijiu sales. (Kweichow Moutai, the top-selling and most famous baijiu brand, is not strong aroma but 'sauce aroma' baijiu.)

Later into the 1970s with new economic policies, more distilleries opened up, new brands were created, and baijiu was no longer a regional beverage but one imported between the various provinces of China. The styles of baijiu were also made official – there are more than 12 official baijiu styles, though the big four that I'll write about later make up approximately 90% of all baijiu sold.

So what we have now are some huge companies/brands that own many of the original small distilleries. The Luzhou Laojiao company, for example, currently consists of 36 "workshops" (distilleries), plus combined aging facilities. Their various brands are made up of blends from their various workshops.

Map of Luzhou Laojiao workshops.

Today, according to a report in November 2018 by Brand Finance Spirits as discussed in The Spirits Business, four of the five "world's most valuable spirits" were baijiu. Moutai is #1 and Luzhou Laojiao is #5. The only non-Chinese spirit in the top five is Johnnie Walker, coming in at #4.

January 23, 2019

Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation

Back to baijiu! We began the discussion with with Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits then Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production.

Now it's time to talk about some production parameters. Like whiskey, baijiu is distilled fermented grains. The grains include more standard whiskey ones like barley and wheat, plus rice and sorghum. Sorghum is the most popular, followed by rice, sticky rice, then other grains.

As should be clear from the chart below, the grains can be mixed together or used alone. The vessels in which fermentation takes place can be stone jars or in pitts that may be earthen or lined with bricks.

The fermentation is accomplished not with yeast alone, but with qu.

	Region of Origin	Grains	Fermentation	Qu	Distillation	Aging
Strong Aroma	Sichuan	Single (sorghum) or Mixed Grains	Earthen pits, continuous fermentation	Big qu, Wheat-based	Pot stills	Ceramic or sometimes stainless steel
Light Aroma	Northern China + Taiwan	Sorghum + rice husks	Stone jars	Big qu, barley + peas	Post stills, Erguotou second pot head, or Fenjiu (twice fermented/distilled)
Sauce Aroma	Southern Sichuan/Moutai	Sorghum	Stone brick-lined pits, 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, also piled	Wheat	8 cycles of fermentation and distillation	Ceramic urns, 3 years minimum
Rice Aroma	Southeastern China	Rice + glutinous rice	Stone jars	Small rice qu, with optional medicinal herbs	Sometimes in continuous stills	Limestone caves, in ceramic jars, sometimes infused

Qu is a combination of mold, yeast, and bacteria. It is used not only for baijiu production but also for undistilled Chinese beverages.

The mold we could say is similar to koji used in sake and shochu production. It helps break the starches in the grains down into fermentable sugars (saccharification). In whiskey, this is accomplished by adding malted barley and/or enzymes to the grains.
The yeast makes alcohol, as it does in other spirits.
The bacteria helps in flavor development of the alcohol.

Qu is made from clumps of grains that collect the yeast, mold, and bacteria. It is crushed up and mixed with damp grains to ferment them. There are different types of qu to ferment different styles of baijiu – "big qu" is made in large bricks of usually wheat, sometimes with peas added. Small qu, which is made to ferment rice-based baijiu, is itself made from rice. Sometimes medicinal herbs are added to small qu to imbue the baijiu with medicinal properties.

As you'd expect, the recipe/incubating conditions/location for each distillery's qu is their closely-guarded secret. I don't know if each distillery produces multiple kinds of qu for their various brands.

The Wikipedia entry for qu contains a great deal more information. The image of bricks of qu to the right is from the Luzhou Laojiao website.

Fermentation

Beyond than the use of qu, one of the other things that's pretty unique to baijiu is "solid state" fermentation. Rather than fermenting a sugary liquid (as in scotch and rum) or a slurry of liquids and solids mixed together (as in bourbon), in baijiu it's moistened grain solids that ferment. The only other spirit I can think of that's fermented from a solid is grappa.

Grains are steamed, mixed with qu, covered, and then put into the fermentation pit/pot. Fermentation can a long time. For strong aroma and sauce aroma baijiu, I am not sure what the shortest fermentation time is, but I don't think I heard anyone mention less than a month – and at the 1573 brand's distillery (Luzhou Laojiao) they mentioned it was 3-4 months normally and could be up to six months in the winter.

For 'rice aroma' baijiu, things go much faster – fermentation is only 5-6 days and in modern facilities it is distilled in closer to liquid form in continuous stills. For 'light aroma' baijiu, it can be from 4 days to 4 weeks, depending on the style.

I'll write more about the particular distillery I visited and the production method for strong aroma baijiu in another post, but one quick factoid: At this distillery they bury the moistened grains and qu in earthen pits to let them ferment. The pits are filled to overflowing, piled above the floor level with grains, and then covered with wet mud which seals it and keeps out oxygen. After the qu does its work, the grains compact a bit and that's how they know fermentation has finished.

You can see in the picture how the pits in the front right are lower than the rest- those are nearing the end of their fermentation.

Pretty cool right? That's not even the craziest part. Stay tuned.

January 22, 2019

Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production

I'm probably going to refer to this table I made about baijiu a lot over several posts, so don't worry too much about taking it all in today. The table lists the properties of the four main styles of baijiu (strong, light, sauce, and rice). There are more styles than this, but they're mostly combinations of these four.

These properties are not legally binding, but general and historical properties based on the major producers of each region as described in the book Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits by Derek Sandhaus . I'll be covering a lot of categories individually here on Alcademics, but should you want to skip ahead, check out DrinkBaijiu.com.

Today I just want to mention the regions of origin of each of the four main styles, highlighted in pink:

	Region of Origin	Grains	Fermentation	Qu	Distillation	Aging
Strong Aroma	Sichuan	Single (sorghum) or Mixed	Earthen pits, continuous fermentation	Big qu, Wheat-based	Pot stills	Ceramic or sometimes stainless steel
Light Aroma	Northern China + Taiwan	Sorghum + rice husks	Stone jars	Big qu, barley + peas	Post stills, Erguotou second pot head, or Fenjiu
Sauce Aroma	Southern Sichuan/Moutai		Stone brick-lined pits, 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, also piled	Wheat	8 cycles of fermentation and distillation	Ceramic urns, 3 years minimum
Rice Aroma	Southeastern China	Rice + glutinous rice	Stone jars	Small rice qu, with optional medicinal herbs	Sometimes in continuous stills	Limestone caves, in ceramic jars, sometimes infused

So that corresponds (very) roughly to:

December 6, 2018

Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits

I spent last week in China learning about baijiu, the world's top-selling spirit, with the brand Ming River Baijiu produced at the Luzhou Laojiao in Luzhou.

Americans and other non-Chinese drinkers tend to view baijiu as a completely foreign spirit, indescribable in relation to other spirits except to say that it's strong and stinky. Well I'm here to tell you that though it is quite different, there are plenty of parallels to other spirits.

Baijiu Is:

Made from fermented and distilled grains, like whiskey. [in baijiu the top grains are sorghum and rice, though corn, barley, wheat, and other grains are used]

Saccharified (complex carbohydrates of the grain broken down into simpler, fermentable sugars) with mold, like sake. [in baijiu the mold is mixed up with yeast and bacteria in bricks called qu so that saccharification and fermentation take place at the same time]

Fermented as a solid mass rather than a liquid, like grappa. [in strong aroma baijiu, steamed grains are buried in a pit with qu for several months to ferment]

Fermented with some of the remainders of the previous distillation (stillage), like sour mash whiskey or Jamaican rum that uses muck pits. This was tremendously exciting to learn. [in baijiu rather than stillage added to just the next batch of fermentation, most of the previous batch is refermented and redistilled with a small portion of new grains]

Usually distilled in pot stills, like many spirits. [some rice aroma baijius are apparently distilled in continuous stills]

Aged in ceramic vessels, like traditional pisco and some wines. [the vessels are non-reactive but breathable, so they allow for oxidation but probably do not impart any of their own flavor to the spirit like wood barrels do]

Blended between batches of different distillations and ages after aging to create the specific brand, like most spirits that are barrel-aged. [in baijiu, a single fermentation pit is divided into different small distillations and these are aged separately]

See, totally relatable.

I'll have a lot more baijiu content going forward, but this is a start.

December 5, 2018
All the Cocktail and Spirits Books Released in 2018, In Consideration for Gifting or Reading

It's the annual Alcademics drink book round-up! These are all the cocktails and spirits books that I know about published in 2018, with a couple of wine and beer books thrown in for good measure. It's over 60 books in total. Read them yourself or give 'em as gifts.

This year there appear to be less overall history books, and more women-centric books, whether history or not. Cocktail recipe books are all quite specific, with several that focus on theory and technique; and these overlap with books designed with the professional bartender in mind.

Get to reading.

Cocktail/Recipe Books

Julep: Southern Cocktails Refashioned by Alba Huerta and Marah Stets

The One-Bottle Cocktail: More than 80 Recipes with Fresh Ingredients and a Single Spirit by Maggie Hoffman

Tequila Beyond Sunrise: Over 40 tequila and mezcal-based cocktails from around the world by Jesse Estes

Finding Mezcal: A Journey into the Liquid Soul of Mexico, with 40 Cocktails by Ron Cooper and Chantal Martineau

Wild Mocktails and Healthy Cocktails: Home-grown and foraged low-sugar recipes from the Midnight Apothecary by Lottie Muir

Infused Booze: Over 60 Batched Spririts and Liqueurs to Make at Home by Kathy Kordalis

Session Cocktails: Low-Alcohol Drinks for Any Occasion by Drew Lazor and Editors of PUNCH

The Cocktail Garden: Botanical Cocktails for Every Season by Ed Loveday and Adriana Picker

Booze & Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks by André Darlington and Tenaya Darlington

Doctor's Orders: Over 50 inventive cocktails to cure, revive & enliven by Chris Edwards and Dave Tregenza

Cocktail Italiano: The Definitive Guide to Aperitivo: Drinks, Nibbles, and Tales of the Italian Riviera by Annette Joseph

Clean + Dirty Drinking: 100+ Recipes for Making Delicious Elixirs, With or Without Booze by Gabriella Mlynarczyk

Are You There God? It's Me, Margarita: More Cocktails with a Literary Twist (A Tequila Mockingbird Book) by Tim Federle

The Art & Craft of Coffee Cocktails: Over 80 recipes for mixing coffee and liquor by Jason Clark

Aperitif: A Spirited Guide to the Drinks, History and Culture of the Aperitif by Kate Hawkings

The Joy of Mixology, Revised and Updated Edition: The Consummate Guide to the Bartender's Craft by Gary Regan

The Dead Rabbit Mixology & Mayhem: The Story of John Morrissey and the World’s Best Cocktail Menu by Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry

Nightcap: More than 40 Cocktails to Close Out Any Evening by Kara Newman

Be Your Own Bartender: A Surefire Guide to Finding (and Making) Your Perfect Cocktail by Carey Jones and John McCarthy

Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions by Alex Day and Nick Fauchald

Winter Drinks: 70 Essential Cold-Weather Cocktails by Editors of PUNCH

Tequila: Shake, Muddle, Stir: Over 40 of the Best Cocktails for Tequila and Mezcal Lovers by Dan Jones

Pickle Juice: A Revolutionary Approach to Making Better Tasting Cocktails and Drinks by Florence Cherruault

The Mini Bar: 100 Essential Cocktail Recipes; 8 Notebook Set by Editors of PUNCH

The Curious Bartender Volume II: The New Testament of Cocktails by Tristan Stephenson

Glamorous Cocktails: Fashionable mixes from iconic London bars by William Yeoward

Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails by Amy Zavatto

Rock Cocktails: 50 rock 'n' roll drinks recipes―from Gin Lizzy to Guns 'n' Rosés

Northern Hospitality with The Portland Hunt + Alpine Club: A Celebration of Cocktails, Cooking, and Coming Together by Andrew Volk and Briana Volk

The Aviary Cocktail Book by Grant Achatz, Micah Melton, Nick Kokonas, Allen and Sarah Hemberger.

The Cocktail Companion: A Guide to Cocktail History, Culture, Trivia and Favorite Drinks by Cheryl Charming

Drink London (London Guides) by Euan Ferguson

Beachbum Berry's Sippin' Safari: Tenth Anniversary Expanded Edition by Jeff Beachbum Berry

Wine Books

Wild Winemaking: Easy & Adventurous Recipes Going Beyond Grapes, Including Apple Champagne, Ginger–Green Tea Sake, Key Lime–Cayenne Wine, and 142 More by Richard W. Bender

Ten Grapes to Know: The Ten and Done Wine Guide by Catherine Fallis

Wine Food: New Adventures in Drinking and Cooking by Dana Frank and Andrea Slonecker

The Sommelier's Atlas of Taste: A Field Guide to the Great Wines of Europe by Rajat Parr and Jordan Mackay

Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails by Amy Zavatto

Spirit Books, Misc.

The Connoisseur’s Guide to Worldwide Spirits: Selecting and Savoring Whiskey, Vodka, Scotch, Rum, Tequila . . . and Everything Else (An Expert’s Guide … and Savoring Every Spirit in the World) by Richard Carleton Hacker

Tabletop Distilling: How to Make Spirits, Essences, and Essential Oils with Small Stills by Kai Möller

The Gin Dictionary by David T. Smith

The Book of Vermouth: A Bartender and a Winemaker Celebrate the World's Greatest Aperitif by Shaun Byrne and Gilles Lapalus

The Curious Bartender's Guide to Gin: How to appreciate gin from still to serve by Tristan Stephenson

Women-Centric Drink Books

Craft Cocktails by Val: Drinks Inspired by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Drinking Like Ladies: 75 modern cocktails from the world's leading female bartenders; Includes toasts to extraordinary women in history by Misty Kalkofen and Kirsten Amann

Liberated Spirits: Two Women Who Battled Over Prohibition by Hugh Ambrose and John Schuttler

A Woman's Drink: Bold Recipes for Bold Women by Natalka Burian

Movers and Shakers: Women Making Waves in Spirits, Beer & Wine by Hope Ewing

Free the Tipple: Kickass Cocktails Inspired by Iconic Women
by Jennifer Croll (Author), Kelly Shami (Illustrator)

History Books

A Short History of Drunkenness: How, Why, Where, and When Humankind Has Gotten Merry from the Stone Age to the Present by Mark Forsyth

A Thousand Thirsty Beaches: Smuggling Alcohol from Cuba to the South during Prohibition by Lisa Lindquist Dorr

Moonshine: A Celebration of America's Original Rebel Spirit by John Schlimm

A Drinkable Feast: A Cocktail Companion to 1920s Paris by Philip Greene

Beer, Mead, Cider

Mead: The Libations, Legends, and Lore of History's Oldest Drink by Fred Minnick

Will Travel for Beer: 101 Remarkable Journeys Every Beer Lover Should Experience by Stephen Beaumont

Beer: 150 Awesome Facts About Your Favorite Brew by Caroline West

Ciderology: From History and Heritage to the Craft Cider Revolution by Gabe Cook

The Craft Beer Dictionary: An A-Z of craft beer, from hop to glass by Richard Croasdale

Kitchen Brewing: A New, Easier and Quicker Way to Home Brew by Jakob Nielsen and Mikael Zetterberg

Bar, Drinking Culture, and Professional Books

Bars, Taverns, and Dives New Yorkers Love: Where to Go, What to Drink by John Tebeau

Drinking Distilled: A User's Manual by Jeffrey Morgenthaler

I'm Just Here for the Drinks: A Guide to Spirits, Drinking and More Than 100 Extraordinary Cocktails by Sother Teague

Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Allergen Awareness: A Chef's Perspective by Myron Keith Norman

Batched & Bottled by Max Venning

The Cocktail Bar: Notes for an Owner & Operator by Chall Gray

Whiskey Books

From Dram to Manhattan: Around the world in 40 whisky cocktails from Scotch to Bourbon by Jesse Estes

Hacking Whiskey: Smoking, Blending, Fat Washing, and Other Whiskey Experiments by Aaron Goldfarb

The Bourbon Bible by Eric Zandona

Whiskey America by Dominic Roskrow

Single Malt: A Guide to the Whiskies of Scotland: Includes Profiles, Ratings, and Tasting Notes for More Than 330 Expressions by Clay Risen

World's Best Whiskies:750 Unmissable Drams from Tain to Tokyo by Dominic Roskrow

Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America by Brian F. Haara

Not enough books for you? Check out:

All the drink books that came out in 2017

All the Cocktails and Spirits Books Published in 2016 for Reading or Gifting

All the Cocktails & Spirits Books Published in 2015, For Reading or Gifting

More Than 40 Drink Books Published in 2014 for Reading or Gifting

November 23, 2018
What to Try When Directional Freezing Doesn’t Produce Clear Ice
If you're trying directional freezing and still not getting clear ice, here are a few considerations.

Know What's Reasonable.

Directional Freezing doesn't get rid of any cloudiness in ice, it just moves it toward one end of your cube/block. You will always have about 15-30 percent cloudy ice as the last part of the ice freezes (if you allow it to freeze all the way).

Motion or Vibration.

While your ice is freezing are you moving the container around? Does your freezer shake and vibrate? Are you opening and slamming the door shut a lot? Any sort of motion tends to knock air bubbles together, and they float up and stick to the bottom of ice as it's freezing downwards, often leading to little bubble trails and starburst-shaped groups of bubbles. The more vibration, the more bubbles/cloudy bits form.

Super Cold Freezers.

A friend of mine couldn't get his ice balls all the way clear using the thermos method. After much back and forth, we realized that he has a super fancy freezer set to super duper cold. The ice ball froze so quickly from all sides that it didn't have a chance to push the cloudy parts out the bottom of the ice ball mold into the thermos.

In general, the warmer your freezer (but still below freezing, obviously), the clearer the ice – but you still want to be food safe (below 0 Fahrenheit or -18 Celsius). As far as I know, the Igloo cooler method should still work in a very cold freezer, but some thinner vessels will freeze from the outside-in rather than in one direction.

Some Tips to Improve Clarity.

If your ice is pretty clear but you've become obsessed with making it ridiculously clear and minimizing the cloudy part at the end of the block (it happens), a few things you can try are:
- Unscrew the aerator off your sink faucet (and put it back on after; it saves water waste).
- Run it through a water filter. Even though direction freezing acts as a filter, pushing minerals and other impurities into the last part of the ice to freeze, you can reduce the mineral/impurity content by using water from the pitcher.
- The reason I run my water through a filter is to remove chlorine/chloramine tastes in the water. I don't care about the minute improvement, if any, in clarity, but I find that if I use unfiltered water when I pop the block out of the cooler there's a big release of chlorine smell. Blech.
- Boil the water. In my opinion, this isn't worth the effort or energy waste, but it can improve clarity ever so slightly. Boiling water should reduce trapped air.
These tips shouldn't make radical, but small, improvements in your ice's clarity.

To read all the ice posts here on Alcademics, check out the Index of Ice Experiments.
November 21, 2018
Ice Advice: Will My Clear Ice Turn Cloudy When Stored in the Freezer?

One question I've seen asked here on Alcademics and on other websites is whether clear ice will turn cloudy when stored. The answer is no, it will not.

Ice is cloudy because of trapped air and impurities like minerals, along with any cracks that make it hard to see through. Once it's made, it pretty much stays as it is. It may absorb smells and sublimate/shrink if not kept in a closed container in the freezer, but that won't impact clarity.

If your ice starts out clear (from a machine or by using a form of directional freezing) it will remain so.

If you have a partially frozen ice cube that looks incredibly clear however, it will likely become cloudy when the center finally freezes. This is because the last part of ice to freeze is usually where trapped air and impurities are pushed.

To read all the ice posts here on Alcademics, check out the Index of Ice Experiments.

November 20, 2018
Ice Advice: The Right Way to Store Ice in the Freezer

Ice in the freezer can absorb smells from both the freezer and the refrigerator, to the surprise of many people. Ice can also sublimate (evaporate) and shrink fairly quickly. So you can either place your ice in a sealed bag/container, and/or do the same with your food.

In my fridge/freezer situation, I don't leave any food unwrapped so that the ice never absorbs food smells. I used to stick leftover pizza in the box in the fridge and by the next morning my ice would taste ever so slightly of it, so now I put the pizza in a Tupperware-type container. There doesn't seem to be any problem with uncooked vegetables stored in there (not smelly onions or garlic or anything), but cooked food is problematic.

For ice that you're going to be storing, I recommend either Ziplock style sealed bags or Tupperware-style containers. Those keep it sealed from sublimating and from absorbing smells. Easy.

If you want to see just how permeable ice is, add a drop of food coloring on top of a big block and watch how it flows into the cube along invisible cracks.

image from Ziplock.com

To read all the ice posts here on Alcademics, check out the Index of Ice Experiments.

November 19, 2018
Audience Feedback on Camper’s Tales of the Cocktail Seminar
A few months after this year's Tales of the Cocktail, I received the feedback from my seminar Bitter Flavors, Taste the Rainbow. I did pretty good!

On the four categories: overall seminar, presenter quality, handouts quality, and amount learned, I received a rating of 9 out of 10 on all.

Positive comments that came in from attendees:
- Camper and his presentation were very interesting – he is clearly a subject matter expert. Made me want to explore this theme more! One of the highlights of tales for me!
- So amazing! We were so impressed not only with the style of the presentation but the content. The format. Everything. Amazing.
- This seminar could not have been better unless it was 3 hours long. Camper’s personality & teaching style is an honor to be around. More bitters & more Camper!!
- Very interesting tasting seminar. Super bar-nerdy which is a good thing. Very informative about the safety and taste of the ingredients in bitters.
- My favourite seminar!
- I’ve watched 2 or 3 of his other seminars. Funny, engaging. He did a lot of pre-work and clearrrrrly knows the in and out. Some of these presenters have 10+ years of only doing one thing, it seems he has actually done so much. Excited to see his presentation next year(s)!
- Awesome job covering a difficult and complex subject.
Of the negative feedback, most was that I covered too much material (always better than too little, my greatest fear is that people will complain they didn't learn anything), or that the pace was too fast/topic was too advanced for some people (same). One person was mad about the font size of my handout. Two people said some of the slides were hard to read, so that's something I'll work on for next year.

Feedback is always tough but luckily I had a ton of very positive responses to compensate for the negative ones. Go me.
November 14, 2018
Historical Info About Scurvy and the Confusion Between Lemons and Limes

I recently (yesterday) finished reading the 2002 book Limeys: The Conquest of Scurvy by David I Harvie. The book isn't really about the global history of scurvy but focuses on one surgeon, the scot James Lind, who was the first person to really prove the efficacy of citrus juice as a treatment in 1747. However, his suggestions of provisioning British Royal Navy fleet with juice weren't officially implemented for another 50 years.

But I'm here to talk about lemons and limes. You know how today we have a standard definition of the fruit and the differences between them, but those definitions have changed over the years? How we use Persian limes today but Key limes were used in cocktails in the past, and how in some old cocktail books the differences between lemons and limes isn't always clear?

Turns out that's not a new problem. When citrus was first being recommended as a cure (and later as a preventative) for scurvy, doctors like Lind most often recommended the juice or oranges and lemons. Oranges never took off, and the juice of lemons was often called lime juice.

Actual lime juice from limes started becoming the more popular option after 1800, thanks in part to the relative ease of sourcing West Indian limes. British sailors were first being referred to as "lime-juicers" and it was Americans who shortened the expression to "limeys," according to the book.

Sailors often associated scurvy cures with acidity, which makes good sense and is not far from the truth. Other cures brought aboard ships included acidic food and beverages including vinegar and sauerkraut. It wasn't until 1918 that it was proven that citric acid itself is useless against scurvy (and I assume vinegar's acetic acid too), and shortly thereafter that the newly-identified Vitamin C was the anti-scorubic needed.

So here's the thing:

Orange have more Vitamin C than lemons, which have about 40% more Vitamin C than limes. (Though the acidity of these citrus fruits is in the opposite order.) If that lime juice was stored in a barrel or came into contact with copper or cooked to reduce it (which was usually the case until the invention of Rose's Lime Juice Cordial), the Vitamin C would degrade even further, becoming nearly useless against scurvy.

The initial confusion over the definition of limes, and the later decision to switch from lemons to limes, proved fairly disastrous to the British. Incidents of scurvy in the Navy crept up again and new false medial theories with other problematic solutions came back into vogue.

November 1, 2018