Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogebam here with an episode from
Speaker 1: the brain Stuff archives, and this one discusses the long
Speaker 1: and fascinating history of a common drink, from temperance to
Speaker 1: the plague lemonade. Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogebam Here, water, sugar,
Speaker 1: and lemon juice. The recipe for lemonade hasn't changed much
Speaker 1: in more than a thousand years. Tart or sweet, pink
Speaker 1: or yellow, clear, cloudy or carbonated. For as long as
Speaker 1: life has been handing out lemons, people the world over,
Speaker 1: from ancient Egyptians to Beyonce, have been making lemonade. The
Speaker 1: exact origin of the lemon itself has not been easy
Speaker 1: to ascertain, but new research has clarified its lineage as
Speaker 1: a sour, orange and citron hybrid. A February study in
Speaker 1: the science journal Nature reveals the discovery of fossilized leaves
Speaker 1: and the yu Non province of China proves citrus has
Speaker 1: been around since the late Miocene epoch, some eight million
Speaker 1: years ago. The earliest record of the precursor to lemonade
Speaker 1: hails from the Mediterranean coast of medieval Egypt. Kush cub
Speaker 1: was made from fermented barley combined with mint, rue, black pepper,
Speaker 1: and citron leaf, and the medieval Jewish community in Cairo consumed, traded,
Speaker 1: and exported bottles of a sugary lemon juice concoction called
Speaker 1: guitarmazot through the thirteenth century. While the citron, which is
Speaker 1: like a lemon but larger with a super thick rind
Speaker 1: and not much pulper juice, was likely known by the
Speaker 1: ancient Jews and throughout the Mediterranean before the Common Era,
Speaker 1: there's no proof that lemons were around in pre Islamic times.
Speaker 1: The mosaics of Rome and frescoes of Pompeii depict images
Speaker 1: of citrus fruits resembling lemons and oranges, but there's no
Speaker 1: paleobotanical or written evidence that they existed there. The earliest
Speaker 1: written reference to the lemon tree is in a tenth
Speaker 1: century Arabic book on farming, and in the late twelfth century,
Speaker 1: the personal physician to the Muslim leader Saladin wrote a
Speaker 1: treatise on the lemon, bringing it to the attention of
Speaker 1: a wider metatru Adian audience. Flash forward to seventeenth century
Speaker 1: Europe lemonade debuted in Paris on August sixteen thirty Made
Speaker 1: of sparkling water, lemon juice, and honey, menders sold it
Speaker 1: from tanks strapped to their backs. While popular across Europe,
Speaker 1: lemonade became so fashionable in Paris than sixteen seventy six
Speaker 1: the vendors incorporated and formed a union called the Company
Speaker 1: the Lemonadiers. The lemonade craze even helped Paris fend off
Speaker 1: the plague, as we talked about in a former episode.
Speaker 1: Britain's contribution to lemonade craze came by way of chemist
Speaker 1: Joseph Priestley, who invented an apparatus for making carbonated water.
Speaker 1: By the seventeen eighties, Johann Schwepp, a German Swiss jeweler,
Speaker 1: had developed a new method of carbonation using a compression
Speaker 1: pump that made mass production more efficient. By the eighteen thirties,
Speaker 1: schwepps fuzzy lemonade was readily available around Europe. By the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, lemonade had made its way to America along
Speaker 1: with waves of European immigrants. During Victorian era, the women's
Speaker 1: temperance movement pushed lemonade as an alternative to alcohol. One
Speaker 1: sun kissed slogan of the day read goodbye to liquor,
Speaker 1: Here's lemonade. From eighteen seventy seven to eighteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: the White House banned alcohol from all state dinners and
Speaker 1: other functions, Although President Rutherford be Hayes made the decision
Speaker 1: himself as a way to court the Prohibition Party. Critics
Speaker 1: of the band dubbed his wife Lucy, a renowned teetotaler
Speaker 1: lemonade Lucy and the Moniker. Stuck and the circus has
Speaker 1: a starring role in lemonades long history. By the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: both ice and the traveling circus had hit the scene,
Speaker 1: and both were taking off. The first known mention linking
Speaker 1: pink lemonade to the circus comes from West Virginia's Wheeling
Speaker 1: Register in eighteen seventy nine. Circus lore has many tales
Speaker 1: of how it's lemonade turned pink, but historians find two
Speaker 1: of them the most viable. In one, a concession worker
Speaker 1: invents pink lemonade when he accidentally drops red colored cinnamon
Speaker 1: candies into a vat of regular lemonade. In proverbial the
Speaker 1: show must go on style, he serves lemonade anyway, and
Speaker 1: the people lap it up. And the other story, a
Speaker 1: harried concession worker, in need of water to make a
Speaker 1: fresh batch of lemonade for an impatient line of thirsty customers,
Speaker 1: grabs the first liquid he sees, and it turns out
Speaker 1: to be a tub of wash water in which a
Speaker 1: performer has just wrung out her dirty pink tights. He
Speaker 1: uses it to make his new and improved strawberry lemonade,
Speaker 1: and the crowd goes wild. Story has it that from
Speaker 1: then on sales doubled, and henceforth no top notch circus
Speaker 1: was ever without pink lemonade. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous advice to
Speaker 1: make a lemonade out of adversity probably became famous thanks
Speaker 1: to a phrase borrowed by Albert Hubbard in nineteen fifteen
Speaker 1: for the obituary of an actor, writer, and humorist Marshall
Speaker 1: Pickney Wilder. Wilder, known for his brilliant stand up routines,
Speaker 1: was a world famous, much beloved household name during a
Speaker 1: time when jobs for people like him could only be
Speaker 1: found in circus side shows. Standing three ft five inches
Speaker 1: tall that's a little over in meter. With a severe
Speaker 1: spinal deformity, he refused to stigmatize others or be stigmatized.
Speaker 1: Fate handed me a lemon, he said, but I have
Speaker 1: made lemonade of it. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article The Fascinating History of Lemonade on how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, written by Carrie Tato. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of My heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more
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