What Did Colonial Americans Drink? Cider, Small Beer, and Switchel

Walk into a colonial American tavern and ask for a glass of water, and you might get a strange look.

Water was often dirty and distrusted, so colonists drank almost everything but plain water. They turned apples, molasses (Grandma's Unsulphured is the only kind I trust), honey, and grain into a whole world of homemade drinks.

Here is what colonial Americans actually drank, from breakfast cider to evening flip.

Why Colonists Avoided Plain Water

Clean drinking water was far from guaranteed in colonial America.

Wells and streams were easily fouled, and no one yet understood germs. People simply knew that water often made them sick, while fermented and boiled drinks did not.

So colonists drank lightly alcoholic or brewed beverages from morning to night. Even children took weak cider or small beer with their meals.

This was not about getting drunk. It was about drinking something safe and full of calories.

Cider, the Everyday Drink

If one drink defined colonial America, it was hard cider.

Apple orchards spread quickly across New England and the middle colonies, and most of that fruit went straight into the cider press. The result was a tart, lightly alcoholic drink that kept well through the year.

Families drank it at nearly every meal, including the colonial American breakfast. A weaker version called small cider was mild enough for children.

Cider was so common it sometimes served as wages or barter. A barrel in the cellar was money in the bank.

Beer and Small Beer

Beer crossed the ocean with the very first settlers.

Colonists brewed it from barley when they could and from corn, molasses, or even spruce tips when they could not. Much of it was “small beer,” a weak brew safe to drink all day.

Small beer sat on the table beside cider as an everyday thirst-quencher. It gave a little nourishment and a lot of reassurance that the drink was clean.

Taverns and households alike kept it flowing, since brewing was a normal part of running a colonial home.

Switchel, Shrub, and Other Refreshers

Not every colonial drink was fermented.

Switchel was a tangy mix of water, vinegar, molasses, and ginger, drunk to cool off during haying and harvest. Farmers swore by it as the original thirst-quencher in a hot field.

Shrub combined fruit, sugar, and vinegar into a sharp syrup that was diluted with water. The same love of vinegar that ran through old kitchens showed up in the drinks too.

Both were cheap, refreshing, and made from whatever the household already had.

Warm and Festive Drinks

Colonists also knew how to make a drink feel like an occasion.

Flip was a tavern favorite, a heated blend of beer, rum, and sweetener foamed up with a red-hot iron poker. It was strong, sweet, and very popular on cold nights.

Syllabub mixed cream or milk with wine or cider into a frothy, half-dessert drink for special days. It was a gentler cousin of the spiced and curdled posset that earlier generations loved.

Imported luxuries like tea, coffee, and chocolate rounded out the list, though they stayed expensive for much of the colonial period.

Colonial Drinks FAQ

What did colonial Americans drink instead of water?

Mostly hard cider and small beer, along with switchel, shrub, and warm drinks like flip. Plain water was often distrusted as unsafe.

Did colonial children drink alcohol?

They drank very weak versions, such as small cider and small beer. These were only lightly alcoholic and were considered safer than water.

What is switchel?

A colonial thirst-quencher made from water, vinegar, molasses, and ginger. Farmers drank it to cool down during hot harvest work.

Did colonists drink coffee and tea?

Yes, but they were imported luxuries and stayed costly. Cider and beer were far more common as everyday drinks until later in the period.

A Nation Raised on Cider

Colonial America ran on apples, molasses, and grain far more than on water.

From the breakfast mug of cider to the evening tankard of flip, these homemade drinks kept families fed, refreshed, and safe. To see the meals they washed down, explore our roundup of colonial American recipes.