himbeeressig

(German: raspberry vinegar) is a sweetened raspberry vinegar syrup that was popular in cocktails as well as soda fountain drinks in the pre-Prohibition era, especially in New Orleans.

Himbeeressig entered the beverage world via the apothecary, and formulae for compounding raspberry vinegar and raspberry vinegar syrup appear frequently in nineteenth-century handbooks for pharmacists and chemists. While according to the 1887 edition of the National Dispensatory, plain raspberry syrup has “no special medicinal virtues” but instead “forms an agreeable addition to mixtures, and with water a pleasant drink for febrile affections [that is, conditions accompanied by fever],” the raspberry version at least would add the astringent properties of vinegar without unduly impairing the drink’s pleasantness.

The pharmacy and the bar were closely related in the nineteenth century, and raspberry vinegar syrup soon found its way into cocktails. In How to Mix Drinks (1862), Jerry Thomas includes three recipes for raspberry vinegar syrup, all of which call for macerating raspberries in vinegar for days then straining and sweetening with various amounts of sugar. See Thomas, Jeremiah P. “Jerry”.

Raspberry vinegar syrup was particularly popular in New Orleans, which had a large German American community, and there it was commonly referred to by its German name, Himbeeressig. As early as the 1870s, the Loubat Glassware and Cork Company included himbeeressig among its line of products, and in the 1920s, it was still advertising it as one of the fourteen flavors of Loubat’s Syrups, which sold to soda fountains in one-gallon jugs for $1.50 apiece.

In Famous New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ’Em (1937), Stanley Clisby Arthur misspelled the syrup’s name in his treatment of the Roffignac cocktail, noting that the original version of the drink was made with “red Hembarig … a popular syrup when old New Orleans was young.” That misspelling has confused numerous cocktail enthusiasts who’ve tried to track down this elusive ingredient to make an authentic Roffignac, but it is merely himbeeressig—raspberry vinegar syrup—that they need. See Arthur, Stanley Clisby.

Recipe: Put 350 g raspberries and 750 ml vinegar in a large plastic container and let them soak for eight days. Strain through a sieve, mashing and pressing the raspberries to extract all their juice. Put the liquid in a saucepan along with 1 kg sugar, bring to a boil over high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Let it simmer a minute or two, then cool and bottle.Arthur, Stanley Clisby. New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em. New Orleans: Harmanson, 1937.

Stillé, Alfred, and John Michael Maisch. The National Dispensatory, 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Henry C. Leas’s Son, 1884, 1481.

By: Robert F. MossSee Thomas, Jeremiah P.See [Arthur, Stanley Clisby.