Summery Drinks

Here's a few tastes for Margaret. She'd mentioned that the hot weather (when we've had some) made her think about refreshing drinks.

From Confederate Recipe Book:

 Apple Water.
 Take one tart apple of ordinary size, well baked, let it be well mashed, pour on it one pint of boiling water, beat them well together, let it stand to cool, and strain it off for use. It may be sweetened with sugar if desired.

and from Common Sense in the Household, by Marion Harland. 1879, some useful suggestions for what ails you:

 Herb Teas
 Are made by infusing the dried or green leaves and stalks in boiling water, and letting them stand until cold. Sweeten to taste.

 Sage tea, sweetened with honey, is good for a sore throat, used as a gargle, with a small bit of alum dissolved in it.
 Catnup tea is the best panacea for infant ills, in the way of cold and colic, known to nurses.
 Pennyroyal tea will often avert the unpleasant consequences of a sudden check of perspiration, or the evils induced by ladies' thin shoes. *
 Chamomile and gentian teas are excellent tonics taken either cold or hot.
 The tea made from blackberry root is said to be good for summer disorders. That from green strawberry leaves is an admirable and soothing wash for a cankered mouth.
 Tea of parsley-root scraped and steeped in boiling water, taken warm, will often cure stranguary and kindred affections, as will that made from dried pumpkin-seed.
 Tansy and rue teas are useful in cases of colic, as are fennel seeds steeped in brandy.
 A tea of damask-rose leaves, dry or fresh, will usually subdue any simple case of summer complaint in infants.
 Mint tea, made from the green leaves, crushed in cold or hot water and sweetened, is palatable and healing to the stomach and bowels.

 * I have read that pennyroyal will act as an abortifactant. Should I wonder if unwanted pregnancies are the result of "ladies' thin shoes"?

 ~v