England water, cider, and spices formed beverige. In
New England the concoction varied, but was uniformly innocuous and
weak--the colonial prototype of our modern "temperance drinks." In many
country houses a summer drink of water flavored with molasses and ginger
was called beverige. The advertisement in the _Boston News Letter_,
August 16th, 1711, of the sale of the captured Neptune with her lading,
at the warehouse of Andrew Fanueil, had "Wine, Vinegar and Beveridge" on
the list. This must have been stronger stuff than molasses and water, to
have been worth barrelling and sending across the water.

Switchel was a drink similar to beverige, but when served out to sailors
was strengthened by a little vinegar and rum. The name was commonly used
in New Hampshire and central Massachusetts. Ebulum was made of the
juices of the elder and juniper berries mixed with ale and spices.

Perry was made to some extent from pears, and was advertised for sale in
the _Boston News Letter_, and one traveller told of "peachy" made from
peaches. Spruce and birch beer were brewed by mixing a decoction of
sassafras, birch, or spruce bark with molasses and water, or by boiling
the twigs in maple sap, or by boiling together pumpkin and
apple-parings, water, malt, and roots. Many curious makeshifts were
resorted to in the early days. One old song boasted

"Oh we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins, of parsnips, of walnut-tree chips."

Fiercer liquors were not lacking. Aqua-vitae, a general name for strong
waters, was brought over in large quantities during the seventeenth
century, and sold for about three shillings a gallon. Cider was
distilled into cider brandy, or apple-jack; and when, by 1670, molasses
had come into port in considerable quantity through the West India
trade, the forests of New England supplied plentiful and cheap fuel to
convert it into "rhum, a strong water drawn from the sugar cane." In a
manuscript description of Barbadoes, written in 1651, we read: "The
chief fudling they make in this island is Rumbullion alias Kill Divil--a
hot hellish and terrible liquor." It was called in some localities
Barbadoes liquor, and by the Indians "ahcoobee" or "ockuby," a word of
the Norridgewock tongue. John Eliot spelled it "rumb," and Josselyn
called it plainly "that cussed liquor, Rhum, rumbullion, or kill-devil."
It went by the latter name and rumbooze everywhere, and was soon cheap
enough. Increase Mather said