The Colonial-Era Drink You Simply Must Try

Loggerheads, flip, and a Happy New Year!

I wasn’t going to write anything today. We had a party last night, and I knew I would very likely feel like garbage today.

And I do. And maybe you do too. Plus, I am going to be cleaning our kitchen for hours later.

But a little while ago, I realized that I must share with you the recipe for one of my favorite drinks: flip.

If you’ve never heard of flip, you’re not alone. Also called “creaming flip,” it is a colonial-era concoction that has largely disappeared into the mists of history. But if this were 1770, you and I would be drunk on it right now. (Yes, at 8:56 AM. They drank A LOT in those days.)

I first heard of flip sometime right around the turn of the millennium, in a Michael Medved broadcast on American history. He spoke of this drink made of beer and rum and molasses that sounded really intriguing.

Sometime in 2003-ish, some friends let my wife and I know that they were going to be hosting a drink-making-contest party. (It might have been my fiancée and I, at the time. I don’t recall.) I figured this was the perfect time to try making this obscure Colonial concoction.

Today, a few urban hipster bars have begun serving flip, and there are plenty of recipes out there now. But this was back during the adolescence of the internet, so there were not a ton of resources on the subject, and Medved’s description was incomplete. However, we did find enough information to proceed.

Flip is not only tasty, but it involves some theatrics that make the whole thing worth the effort. The gist of the drink is simple enough:

• In one pot, you heat up some beer. You can also substitute cider, which we do, because we dislike beer. It’s way better with cider anyway. Sweeter.

• In the other pot, you mix rum and molasses and heat that too, and then temper in some heavy cream. You can substitute sugar, but that is less authentic.

• While all of that has been going on, you’re also heating up an iron poker or loggerhead in a fire, until it is red hot, or close to it. (You’ll see.)

• You don’t boil the cider or the rum-molasses-cream mixture—you just get ‘em good and hot. And then you mix one into the other and begin pouring them back and forth from pot to pot, to “cream” them together.

• Once you’re happy with that, you take the hot loggerhead and plunge it into the mixture. It begins to bubble and froth and sizzle. It gets a little messy (not too bad), but it’s worth it for the show.

• It’s also worth it for the taste. The heat from the loggerhead caramelizes the sugars and gives the drink a cooked flavor reminiscent of a farm-stand cider donut. It’s good!

Early on the day of the drink-making-contest party, we made a batch at home. It came out awful, but we were committed, so we decided to make it again at the party and let the flip fall where it may.

The contest had two prizes: one for taste and one for presentation. Our friends and hosts had made an elaborate dais with lights and festoons for their very elaborate and delicious cocktail. Surely they were going to win, we thought. Maybe we might win for presentation, but not for taste.

But our second attempt, made in their kitchen, actually came out pretty good. Good enough to win the mosts votes for the taste award. You see, flip, when done right, is delicious! And no one had ever had anything quite like it.

Our presentation was also not something anyone expected. I unfurled a 48-star flag and improvised an off-the-cuff speech about history and patriotism. Then my wife plunged in the heated poker and the bubbling sizzle began. So we won for presentation as well.

In the years since, we have made it several more times—usually on New Year’s Eve. We’ve also read about, and tried, variations…

Medved, and one other, spoke of pouring the final creamed concoction into a roast pumpkin before plunging in the loggerhead. We’ve done that a few times—including the warty monstrosity we used last night, which I baked until the shell became hard and a beautiful dark orange. That adds more eye candy to the presentation, and perhaps a little extra taste. (Though last night’s also added a little chewy bit of the roast pumpkin to my cup full, since I took the last of it from the bottom of the pumpkin.)

Some recipes call for tempering in eggs as well. We had some success with egg whites, but if you see a recipe that calls for whole eggs, be very cautious. We tried that once and it was…bad. Really gross, actually. If you try it and pull it off somehow, let me know, but I would be extremely skeptical of any such recipe variant.

Some recipes talk about adding dried pumpkin, but I think that unless you have dehydrated it and then powderized it into oblivion, it would add an unwanted texture. However, last night, I did use some molasses I made from the liquor of a sweet pumpkin, and that was delicious.

This has become enough of a tradition for us that my blacksmith sister-in-law even made us a loggerhead for our flip-making endeavors. Which raises an interesting historical point…

One theory for the origin of the expression “at loggerheads” is that it came out of flip culture. And yes, flip really was big enough 250 years ago that we can use the phrase “flip culture.” The drink was super-popular in New England. They even had special mugs made just for drinking flip. Anyway…

Imagine that a bunch of people are in a New England tavern getting blasted on mugs of flip. It’s a cold winter night, the fire is lit, and the loggerheads used to sizzle their drinks are leaning up against the hearth.

Maybe some contentious topic of discussion comes up—Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, perhaps, or the subject of revolution itself. One thing leads to another and two impassioned drunks jump up to express their disagreement. The loggerheads are close at hand—easily grabbed and brandished! Chances are, no one actually gets clubbed, but the two disputants are certainly “at loggerheads.”

Colonials drank about four times as much alcohol as we do today—not because they all wanted to be drunken sots, but because alcohol killed various pathogens in water, making it safer to drink. But flip managed to make turn a necessity into a fun and delicious experience—one I think you should have too!

I recommend keeping it simple, like the recipe I described above. I cannot give you amounts, really, because I always kind of wing it. It was definitely three cans of cider, and maybe three jiggers of rum (I just poured, so I am not sure). Then I used some molasses and some heavy cream—enough to where it looked and tasted good.

Few people have loggerheads these days, but a cast-iron poker will do. (I dunno, maybe you could commission my sister-in-law to make you a loggerhead.)

Just play with it—that’s part of the fun. And don’t wait until new New Year’s Eve!

Happy 2025!

PS: I did not take any pictures last night, and my wife—lucky wench!—is still asleep.

PPS: Now she’s awake, but she has to get her coffee.

PPS: She didn’t take any pics last night, but here are some from a previous year (and a significantly less raucous gathering than last night’s).