June 25, 2024 • 26 mins
Daffy's Elixir was one of the most popular patent medicines in Britain -- and it sold for nearly 300 years, which is amazing considering these types of products were often a flash in a pan. But what makes this product different than others we’ve talked about this snake oil season, other than its longevity, is that its ingredients list wasn’t kept secret -- it was a novel idea to publish ingredients for patent medicines at a time when most products didn’t even put that information on the label. And manufacturers seemed to be okay with that -- maybe because no one could actually prove ownership.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Daffy's Elixir was one of the most popular patent medicines
in Britain during the eighteenth century, and it was produced
for nearly three hundred years, which is amazing considering these
types of products were usually often just a flash in
a pan. But what makes Daffies different than others we've
talked about this season, other than perhaps its longevity, is
(00:34):
that its ingredients list was not a secret initially maybe,
but it didn't stay that way for very long, and
the manufacturers plural seemed to be okay with that. And
then there's the question of ownership. Who thought of it
and whose recipe was the original? As the story goes,
it was probably created by clergyman Thomas Daffy of red Myle,
(00:57):
Leicestershire in sixteen forty seven. They named it Elixer Salutes
or Elixir of Health, and things took off from there,
not only with dozens of different formulas, but also published
recipes to help you make some in your own home.
That's unheard of. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm a Rage Marky.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And I'm Holly Fried. It was a novel idea to
publish ingredients and recipes for patent medicines in newspapers and pamphlets.
Most products didn't even put that information on the label,
but in the nineteenth century, recipes began to be widely
distributed in places like household management books, and that included
(01:36):
Elixer salutes. But these recipes did not always have an
associated name or source. So who should claim themselves as
the sole manufacturer of the genuine elixir of health? Well,
that's complicated, and we're going to talk about why. During
this time of patent medicine popularity, there were, of course rivals,
(01:57):
there were counterfeitters, and each reclaimed to consumers that the
other was of quote spurious imitation. Ownership of a recipe
could be claimed by its inventor or by anyone any relative,
an employee, or a business partner in the manufacturing company.
Basically legit or not. Anyone who had access to the
(02:18):
recipe could say that they owned it, and there wasn't
actually much to be done to correct those falsehoods once
they happened, which makes the historical record on Elixer salutis
a bit of an adventure.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Manufactured and sold for roughly three hundred years. The elixir
became popularly known as Daffy's Elixir and was one of
the longest surviving and one of the most successful of
all patent medicines. So let's start at the beginning. When
Thomas Daffy died in sixteen eighty, his recipe stayed in
the Daffy family, but not for long. It was such
(02:55):
a popular product that herbalists and chemists had begun making
their own versions for them their apothecary shelves, even though
their ingredients often bore little to no resemblance to the
Thomas Daffy original. It's believed only three people knew the
original recipe after Daffy's death, his daughter Catherine, and two
other family members, Anthony and Daniel Daffy. Daniel was his son,
(03:18):
and Anthony was very likely a nephew, probably not a son.
Records dating back three hundred years can be a little
bit fuzzy sometimes, Both, though, were apothecaries in Nottingham.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Way back in the historical timeline when the product was
first introduced. Daffy's Elixir was listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary as a remedy for toothaches, in particular for teething babies,
and its origin was listed as seventeenth century English clergyman
Thomas Daffy, and maybe he intended it to be for
(03:51):
toothaches or not. That's actually hard to know because its
usage changes over time, as we're going to talk about.
By sixteen eighty though, around the same time of Thomas's death,
Thomas Daffy's name was replaced with Anthony Daffy in the OED.
Close to the turn of the eighteenth century, Anthony moved
to London and began to advertise Elixer Salutis as Daffy's
(04:15):
Elixir Salutis. He began to market it beyond word of
mouth by distributing pamphlets listing the patent medicine as a
laxative rather than a remedy for toothaches. It was nicknamed
quote the famous purging cordial. Anthony's advertising brought it out
of the shadows and into the national and eventually international market,
(04:38):
and people began using it for all sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
When Anthony died, the secret recipe became an open secret.
It wasn't very secret before his death, though, to the
chagrin of the Daffi family.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Despite all the efforts of Anthony Daffy and his family
to keep it to themselves, it still got out. Before
seventeen hundred, there are published records of more than one
version of the Elixir, but then over the next two
hundred years, many versions were published in dozens of household
medicine books, pharmacopeias, and books of household management.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
After Anthony's death, it's believed that his widow, Eleanor, continued
to market the product until their daughter, also named Catherine,
took over the business in seventeen oh seven. Probably this
is a turn in the elixir journey that is a
little bit ill defined, but we do know that in
the early seventeen hundreds, the Elixir began being advertised widely
(05:37):
in not only local pamphlets, but also in emerging national
newspapers and journals.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Anthony and Eleanor's daughter Katherine is considered responsible for placing
an ad, well sort of an ad you'll see what
we mean in the Postboy in seventeen oh seven, or
maybe very early seventeen oh eight, telling the origin story
of the tonic, which will paraphrase, and it went a
bit like this that during the inventor Thomas Daffy's lifetime.
(06:06):
The elixir had been sold by his son Daniel in
apothecary at Nottingham. The ad claimed his kin, Anthony Daffy,
also knew the secret ingredients and preparation. It's also said
that at the time Anthony's widow, Eleanor, disputed Thomas Daffy's
daughter's right to name herself proprietus of the elixir, though
(06:28):
we don't know why she felt that way, or why
it would even be written in marketing materials, but there
it is.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
The new and rapidly growing medium of newspapers offered a
way to expand the reach of your advertising. Patent medicines,
or otherwise beyond anything that was previously available, you could
reach national and international consumers at least potentially. One advertisement,
placed in an addition of the Manchester Mercury in seventeen
(06:56):
fifty seven, begins describing the product as a cure quote
the original elixir so much approved of in both town
and country, which has performed such number of great cures
when all other medicines have failed, recommended by several eminent physicians.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsors. When we're back. We'll talk about how many
manufacturers really produced Daffy's Elixir and how many claimed they
were the.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Original Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk Diceyan Company, and
how while they were definitely not the original makers of
(07:45):
the elixir, they became its number one source.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
By the seventeen twenties, there were at least half a
dozen different Daffi's Elixir manufacturers competing to be the number
one seller, names like Ray Rock, Barclay, Bradshaw, Jackson, Swinton, Smith, Staples.
Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, all of these
names came and went as producers of the elixir, but
(08:12):
one company dominated the others, William and klud Dicey and
Company of Bow Churchyard in London. By seventeen seventy five
ish they claimed they had the soul rights of manufacture
of what was now being called true Daffy's Elixir, though
there's no official record of anyone having soul rights. There
(08:33):
is though record that the Daffy family knew there were
fake versions out there. An advertisement as early as seventeen
hundred featured the warning quote reader, beware of counterfeiters, for
they swarm.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Let's talk about this dominating producer, Dicey in Company, from
at least the early nineteenth century until the mid twentieth century,
when it disappears from the market. Most of Daffy's elixir
sold is thought to have been manufactured by Dices. The
company saturated the market so well that what had always
been nicknamed Daffi's was now popularly known as Dicey's, Daffy's, Dicey's, Daffy's.
(09:13):
The Daffies that became Diceys seems to have first appeared
during the seventeen twenties, so that's about twenty to thirty
years after all of those allegedly secret recipes were first produced. DICE's,
as we mentioned, was just one of many producing the product,
and people were okay with this. It was generally accepted
that there was more than one version of their go
(09:35):
to patent medicine. For an analogy, think of it the
way we have different brands of say aspirin on the
market today.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
But by the turn of the nineteenth century, two names
show up repeatedly when it comes to the elixir and
its preparation, Dicey Yes and also a brand named Swinton.
Consumers may not have noticed a difference, but there actually
was one. Dicey's version was based in senna leaves, while
(10:04):
Swinton's elixir base was jolip root, and we'll talk about
how both are part of an early ingredients list. But
Swinton's Daffy's elixir had one thing in its favor. It
had a direct link to the Daffy family. And here's how.
A man named Peter Swinton married Mary Acton around seventeen
(10:25):
sixty three, and Mary was the niece of Anthony Daffy.
This Anthony Daffy was the grandson of the Anthony who
was Thomas Daffy's nephew. It's somewhat confusing because we have
a lot of similar names, but hang in there with us.
We'll try to figure it all out. According to records,
Mary seems to have been the maker of the elixir
(10:46):
for the Swinton brand until her death in seventeen eighty,
after which Peter claimed proprietorship of the product. Peter died
a few years after his wife and left the rights
to the elixir to his son, who was another Anthony,
Anthony Daffy Swinton. This Anthony continued to produce and sell
Swinton's original Daffy's Elixir until roughly eighteen fourteen, and after
(11:10):
which writes to produce the product appeared to have gone
to Smith and Company.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Manufacturing later turned over to Messrs W. Sutton in Company
of Enfield, Middlesex, who continued to market it throughout the
later nineteenth century. It remained in production in a similar
form as in previous years, and we'll get into how
its ingredients and preparations varied by manufacturer in just a bit.
Eventually it made its way to the American market, most
(11:39):
likely through Diceian Company. Prior to the American Revolutionary War,
the elixir was exported from Britain to colonial America, but
after eighteen hundred it was manufactured. It appears in Pennsylvania
by the Diattville Glassworks. Thomas W. Diot, owner of said
glass works in the eighteen thirties, was well known for
(12:00):
tempering the bottles for patent medicines that he sold around
the country.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
We are going to take a break for a word
from our sponsors now, and when we return, we'll talk
about the ingredients used to make this elixir and how
some differed from what was considered the original.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about ingredients like senna
and jalap and how manufacturers of the elixir over the
years changed its health claims.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
As we mentioned earlier in the episode, the top two
producers of this elixir were the Dicey and the Swinton brands.
Most published recipes that actually had attribution were associated with
these two specific manufacturer names as well, But one common
observation of the recipes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(13:02):
was that Daffy's Elixir was very similar to a product
called tincture of Senna, which was sold by apothecaries and
druggists during that time. Sena tincture was an herbal remedy
used to relieve constipation and contained generally the leaves of
Senna alexandrina in an alcohol base. Its use went way
(13:23):
back before the time of a patent medicine's craze, but
it was available around the time many of these wannabe
Daffy's Elixir manufacturers were busy being wannabes. They could have
easily read about it, for instance, in Nicholas Culpeper's English
Physician and Complete Herbal which was written in seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
An early recipe for what was called true Daffy, dating
to seventeen hundred lists the following ingredients. This was only
twenty years, mind you, after Thomas Daffy died. Quote aniseed, brandy,
coconeel ella, campaign, fennel seed, jalla, manna, parsley seed, raisin, rhubarb, saffron, senna,
(14:05):
and Spanish liquorice. Modern analysis suggests, though they were mostly
made from alcohol, many forms of the elixir could function
as a laxative of note. Other older recipes included guwackened
wood chips, caraway seeds, and on occasion, coriander seeds.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So laxative that seems plausible toothaches debatable. Let's break down
these ingredients a bit. Using an alcoholic distillation as an
ingredient would have helped to preserve the elixir. Aniseed is
a folk remedy often used for indigestion, so that's on
brand for a purgative. Jollip, mana, and senna all have
(14:47):
laxative qualities. Raisins would have added sweetness, but also fiber. Rhubarb,
like raisins, would also have been a good source of fiber.
Those other ingredients, some of them may or may not
have anti inflammatory benefits. Coconeil does not have laxative properties,
but it's long been used to give things a really
(15:08):
deep red color. Add those alternative ingredients we mentioned too,
Guiacum wood chips were historically used to treat syphilis, not constipation,
and caraway and coriander may have helped with digestive conditions
like heartburn.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
In later years, the ingredients list differed depending on which
manufacturer you got your tonic from, but most often contained
a similar list to that one from seventeen hundred. It
was really amazingly consistent. The whole thing doesn't sound very tasty. Well.
It was said to be an acquired taste. Any alcohol
(15:46):
could be used, but the alcohols of choice for a
true elixir salutis were gin or brandy. In fact, in
the eighteen hundreds, when the product was at peak popularity,
gin was so popular as an ingredient that the name
Daffies became British slang for Jim.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Antique. Bottle Collector's ABC magazine published in twenty nineteen that
they had discovered, at least so far nearly thirty recipes
for Daffy's elixir across the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries,
including one that was handwritten, and unlike most other proprietary medicines,
(16:24):
you could if you wanted to just make them at home.
There were multiple recipes available to make small batches. The
Lady's Friend and Family Physical Library, published in seventeen eighty eight,
notes that quote this is an agreeable purge if there
is such a thing, and nothing more can be useful
than to keep it ready made for family use. Modern
(16:46):
Domestic Cookery and Useful Receipt Book from eighteen twenty nine
printed another version from William Augustus Henderson called quote the
true Daffy's elixir, and this was considered by many to
be the true do it yourself recipe.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So what's in that homebrew? Henderson's was as follows, quote
take five ounces of aniseeds, three ounces of fennel seeds,
four ounces of parsley seeds, six ounces of Spanish liquorice,
five ounces of senna, one ounce of rhubarb, three ounces
of ella campaign root, seven ounces of kiln, twenty one
(17:26):
DRAMs of saffron, six ounces of manna, two pounds of raisins,
a quarter of an ounce of cocaine, eel and two
gallons of brandy stone the raisins, slice the mots and
bruise the jallab, then mix the hole together, and after
letting them stand close covered for fifteen days, strain out
the elixir. If you look closely at it, that ingredient
(17:49):
list isn't too different from what manufacturers were producing, and
other make it yourself versions that we found contained spirit
of malt, sac or white wine, and liquorice shred. When
it came to method, of course, it varied a bit
among the home recipes as well.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Analysis of those recipes dating from as early as the
sixteen eighties, which is shortly after Thomas Daffy's death, through
eighteen fifty shows there are some ingredients that often overlap,
but there are three primary ingredients in common. And no,
it's not the fennel, the raisins and the rhubarb. It's
(18:27):
the senna, the jallab and the copious amounts of alcohol.
All of the Daffy's Elixir recipes have a high alcohol content,
ranging from around twenty five percent to more than fifty
percent by volume. Among the twenty seven recipes uncovered by
Antique Bottle Collector, twenty six are different versions, although some
(18:50):
of those recipes have identical ingredient lists with just differing
proportions and maybe slightly differing method and also sure transcre
ryption errors and other mistakes could have been made when
recipes were transferred between people and over generations. That's certainly
a really common problem with documents in general, as they're
shared and they evolve.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
We can't talk about a patent medicine without talking about
its dubious medical claims. And as there were many variations
of Daffy's elixir, there were also many claims it was
originally designed for toothaches, as we said, or maybe stomach ailments,
depending on what you read, but it doesn't matter. Daffy's
(19:33):
wasn't a single source remedy for long. By the early
nineteenth century, it was advertised as an elixir intended to
help the following ailments. And you should brace yourself because
this is going to take a minute. Quote the stone
in babes and children convulsion fits, consumption and bad digestives,
agus piles, surfeits, fits of the mother, and vapors from
(19:55):
the spleen, green sickness, children's distempers, whether the worms, rickets,
stones convulsions, gripes, king's evil, joint evil, or any other
disorder proceeding from wind or crudities, doubt and rheumatism, stone
or gravel in the kidneys, colic and griping of the bowels.
The this stick, both as cure and preventative, provided always
(20:18):
that the patient be moderate in drinking, have a care
to prevent taking cold, and keep to good diet. Dropsy
and scurvy. The frequent use of the medicine to treat colic,
gripes or fret in horses was deplored in early veterinary manuals.
Oh yeah, that's right. There were at least two recipes
found that were intended for veterinary use.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That is a long list, and as that long list shows,
in the end, it became, characteristically as most other quack medicines,
a product promoted as a cure all and a general
pick me up. Popular as it was while it was
claimed it could cure everything. This elixir probably couldn't cure anything.
(21:02):
But what it could do was get you drunk.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And on that note, would you like a little sip
of curious what ails you? Well?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yes I would.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Okay, this one gave me such a delicious inspiration and
I'm very glad and happy to report that it turned
out really well. So once we mentioned there's an ingredient,
we mentioned that's not any of the primaries that I
literally did the meerkat set up and went, let's put
that in a drink, and that is saffron.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh, one of the alternatives.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, yes, And once that came up, I knew exactly
what I wanted to do. And because gin was so
prominent in it and it was very alcohol forward, I
was like, we need to do a spirit forward drink
that features gin and saffron, And I thought, ooh, we
could mess with a gimlet and make something new. First
of all, you got to do a little infusion before
you're ready to make your drink. This is a prep
(21:59):
the day before situation. As an aside, I thought when
I was a kid that saffron was like for millionaires,
because every time my mom would make saffron bread, she
would make sure we knew how expensive that saffron had
been and we better appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I felt the same way.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It is pricey compared to some other ingredients or herbs
or any kind of mix in you might use. But
it's also a nice case where a little goes quite
a long way. So for this, you need a pinch
of saffron, like I would say, less than a third
of a teaspoon. I get mine, and it comes in
like pre set little mini envelopes, and so I just
(22:38):
use it as in the envelope. It averages out to
like maybe a third of a teaspoon. Maybe you're being
very generous. You're gonna put that into an airtight container
with six ounces of gin, so you're gonna make a
lot more gin than you actually need. But if you,
as we've said before, if you shrink your amounts a
lot smaller, you start to mess with the proportions and
(22:59):
it doesn't quite work as well. So put those in
your eartight container. Give it a good shake. You'll notice
right away it starts to turn yellow. Leave it overnight
if you don't want to wait overnight six to eight hours.
You can shake it more if you want optional, but
it's fun to do. Then when you're done, you're still
gonna have those kind of little spindly threadlike pieces of
saffron that you'll strain out, and the gin will be
(23:21):
a beautiful golden yellow color. And it is time to
get ready to make your drink. So into your shaking tin,
you're gonna put two ounces of this saffron infused gin,
three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, three quarters
of an ounce of simple or vanilla syrup, and then
we're gonna add another ingredient that came up, which is
(23:41):
a half ounce of cognac. Shakey, shaky, shake with ice.
Strain it into a pre chilled cocktail glass. You will
not have ice in that glass. And then note how
absolutely beautiful it turns out and how absolutely beautiful it tastes.
I am obsessed with drink now. I gotta have saffron
(24:02):
all the time. I'm calling this one open secret since
Daffy's recipe was gonna open secret. I love this. I
love a spirit forward drink once in a while, and
this one was like exceptional. And what's really cool is
that there's a ton of gin in it, which a
lot of people don't like. And I really think people
that don't like gin might like this drink. So I
(24:24):
tested it on people that don't like gin and they
liked it.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
That's in its favor.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The mocktail is you're gonna use the same proportions for everything,
But instead of that two ounces of gin, you're gonna
use flat tonic to do your saffron and fusion. Make
sure it is very flat before you seal your thing
and shake it because you don't want any surprise explosions.
It's never fun. And then in lieu of kognac, you'll
only use half an ounce. But again this is a
(24:52):
proportion game. You're gonna use four ounces of white grape
juice and you're gonna soak it with a tea bag
of black tea. If you want to heat up your
white grape juice, that is totally fine. You really only
need to steep it for like ten minutes. You can
also cold steep it and give it more like forty
five minutes or an hour. That also works fine. But
you basically just want to give that white grape juice
(25:13):
a fuller body and a bigger flavor than it has
on its own, because that is going to help balance
out all those other ingredients. And that is you make
it exactly the same. So it's a two ounces of
your saffron infused fluid, whether that be gin or flattonic,
three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, three quarters
of an ounce with simpler vanilla syrup and then just
a half ounce of cognac or your tea infused white
(25:36):
grape juice. Delicious.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That sounds both of them sound delicious, both versions.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You want it so cold and it's so good. Now
I just have to be constantly infusing gin with saffron
and then you'll feel fancy if you grew up like
me getting yelled at about how expensive saffron is.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Oh, I think that might be our age group.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
That is the open secret. It is a lot of alcohol.
So it is one that we want you to be
very careful with. Drink responsibly always. We will be right
back here next week with another tale of snake oil
and another drink to go with it. Criminalia is a
(26:18):
production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Daffy's Elixir was one of the most popular patent medicines
in Britain during the eighteenth century, and it was produced
for nearly three hundred years, which is amazing considering these
types of products were usually often just a flash in
a pan. But what makes Daffies different than others we've
talked about this season, other than perhaps its longevity, is
(00:34):
that its ingredients list was not a secret initially maybe,
but it didn't stay that way for very long, and
the manufacturers plural seemed to be okay with that. And
then there's the question of ownership. Who thought of it
and whose recipe was the original? As the story goes,
it was probably created by clergyman Thomas Daffy of red Myle,
(00:57):
Leicestershire in sixteen forty seven. They named it Elixer Salutes
or Elixir of Health, and things took off from there,
not only with dozens of different formulas, but also published
recipes to help you make some in your own home.
That's unheard of. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm a Rage Marky.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And I'm Holly Fried. It was a novel idea to
publish ingredients and recipes for patent medicines in newspapers and pamphlets.
Most products didn't even put that information on the label,
but in the nineteenth century, recipes began to be widely
distributed in places like household management books, and that included
(01:36):
Elixer salutes. But these recipes did not always have an
associated name or source. So who should claim themselves as
the sole manufacturer of the genuine elixir of health? Well,
that's complicated, and we're going to talk about why. During
this time of patent medicine popularity, there were, of course rivals,
(01:57):
there were counterfeitters, and each reclaimed to consumers that the
other was of quote spurious imitation. Ownership of a recipe
could be claimed by its inventor or by anyone any relative,
an employee, or a business partner in the manufacturing company.
Basically legit or not. Anyone who had access to the
(02:18):
recipe could say that they owned it, and there wasn't
actually much to be done to correct those falsehoods once
they happened, which makes the historical record on Elixer salutis
a bit of an adventure.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Manufactured and sold for roughly three hundred years. The elixir
became popularly known as Daffy's Elixir and was one of
the longest surviving and one of the most successful of
all patent medicines. So let's start at the beginning. When
Thomas Daffy died in sixteen eighty, his recipe stayed in
the Daffy family, but not for long. It was such
(02:55):
a popular product that herbalists and chemists had begun making
their own versions for them their apothecary shelves, even though
their ingredients often bore little to no resemblance to the
Thomas Daffy original. It's believed only three people knew the
original recipe after Daffy's death, his daughter Catherine, and two
other family members, Anthony and Daniel Daffy. Daniel was his son,
(03:18):
and Anthony was very likely a nephew, probably not a son.
Records dating back three hundred years can be a little
bit fuzzy sometimes, Both, though, were apothecaries in Nottingham.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Way back in the historical timeline when the product was
first introduced. Daffy's Elixir was listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary as a remedy for toothaches, in particular for teething babies,
and its origin was listed as seventeenth century English clergyman
Thomas Daffy, and maybe he intended it to be for
(03:51):
toothaches or not. That's actually hard to know because its
usage changes over time, as we're going to talk about.
By sixteen eighty though, around the same time of Thomas's death,
Thomas Daffy's name was replaced with Anthony Daffy in the OED.
Close to the turn of the eighteenth century, Anthony moved
to London and began to advertise Elixer Salutis as Daffy's
(04:15):
Elixir Salutis. He began to market it beyond word of
mouth by distributing pamphlets listing the patent medicine as a
laxative rather than a remedy for toothaches. It was nicknamed
quote the famous purging cordial. Anthony's advertising brought it out
of the shadows and into the national and eventually international market,
(04:38):
and people began using it for all sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
When Anthony died, the secret recipe became an open secret.
It wasn't very secret before his death, though, to the
chagrin of the Daffi family.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Despite all the efforts of Anthony Daffy and his family
to keep it to themselves, it still got out. Before
seventeen hundred, there are published records of more than one
version of the Elixir, but then over the next two
hundred years, many versions were published in dozens of household
medicine books, pharmacopeias, and books of household management.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
After Anthony's death, it's believed that his widow, Eleanor, continued
to market the product until their daughter, also named Catherine,
took over the business in seventeen oh seven. Probably this
is a turn in the elixir journey that is a
little bit ill defined, but we do know that in
the early seventeen hundreds, the Elixir began being advertised widely
(05:37):
in not only local pamphlets, but also in emerging national
newspapers and journals.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Anthony and Eleanor's daughter Katherine is considered responsible for placing
an ad, well sort of an ad you'll see what
we mean in the Postboy in seventeen oh seven, or
maybe very early seventeen oh eight, telling the origin story
of the tonic, which will paraphrase, and it went a
bit like this that during the inventor Thomas Daffy's lifetime.
(06:06):
The elixir had been sold by his son Daniel in
apothecary at Nottingham. The ad claimed his kin, Anthony Daffy,
also knew the secret ingredients and preparation. It's also said
that at the time Anthony's widow, Eleanor, disputed Thomas Daffy's
daughter's right to name herself proprietus of the elixir, though
(06:28):
we don't know why she felt that way, or why
it would even be written in marketing materials, but there
it is.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
The new and rapidly growing medium of newspapers offered a
way to expand the reach of your advertising. Patent medicines,
or otherwise beyond anything that was previously available, you could
reach national and international consumers at least potentially. One advertisement,
placed in an addition of the Manchester Mercury in seventeen
(06:56):
fifty seven, begins describing the product as a cure quote
the original elixir so much approved of in both town
and country, which has performed such number of great cures
when all other medicines have failed, recommended by several eminent physicians.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
We're going to take a break for a word from
our sponsors. When we're back. We'll talk about how many
manufacturers really produced Daffy's Elixir and how many claimed they
were the.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Original Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk Diceyan Company, and
how while they were definitely not the original makers of
(07:45):
the elixir, they became its number one source.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
By the seventeen twenties, there were at least half a
dozen different Daffi's Elixir manufacturers competing to be the number
one seller, names like Ray Rock, Barclay, Bradshaw, Jackson, Swinton, Smith, Staples.
Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, all of these
names came and went as producers of the elixir, but
(08:12):
one company dominated the others, William and klud Dicey and
Company of Bow Churchyard in London. By seventeen seventy five
ish they claimed they had the soul rights of manufacture
of what was now being called true Daffy's Elixir, though
there's no official record of anyone having soul rights. There
(08:33):
is though record that the Daffy family knew there were
fake versions out there. An advertisement as early as seventeen
hundred featured the warning quote reader, beware of counterfeiters, for
they swarm.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Let's talk about this dominating producer, Dicey in Company, from
at least the early nineteenth century until the mid twentieth century,
when it disappears from the market. Most of Daffy's elixir
sold is thought to have been manufactured by Dices. The
company saturated the market so well that what had always
been nicknamed Daffi's was now popularly known as Dicey's, Daffy's, Dicey's, Daffy's.
(09:13):
The Daffies that became Diceys seems to have first appeared
during the seventeen twenties, so that's about twenty to thirty
years after all of those allegedly secret recipes were first produced. DICE's,
as we mentioned, was just one of many producing the product,
and people were okay with this. It was generally accepted
that there was more than one version of their go
(09:35):
to patent medicine. For an analogy, think of it the
way we have different brands of say aspirin on the
market today.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
But by the turn of the nineteenth century, two names
show up repeatedly when it comes to the elixir and
its preparation, Dicey Yes and also a brand named Swinton.
Consumers may not have noticed a difference, but there actually
was one. Dicey's version was based in senna leaves, while
(10:04):
Swinton's elixir base was jolip root, and we'll talk about
how both are part of an early ingredients list. But
Swinton's Daffy's elixir had one thing in its favor. It
had a direct link to the Daffy family. And here's how.
A man named Peter Swinton married Mary Acton around seventeen
(10:25):
sixty three, and Mary was the niece of Anthony Daffy.
This Anthony Daffy was the grandson of the Anthony who
was Thomas Daffy's nephew. It's somewhat confusing because we have
a lot of similar names, but hang in there with us.
We'll try to figure it all out. According to records,
Mary seems to have been the maker of the elixir
(10:46):
for the Swinton brand until her death in seventeen eighty,
after which Peter claimed proprietorship of the product. Peter died
a few years after his wife and left the rights
to the elixir to his son, who was another Anthony,
Anthony Daffy Swinton. This Anthony continued to produce and sell
Swinton's original Daffy's Elixir until roughly eighteen fourteen, and after
(11:10):
which writes to produce the product appeared to have gone
to Smith and Company.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Manufacturing later turned over to Messrs W. Sutton in Company
of Enfield, Middlesex, who continued to market it throughout the
later nineteenth century. It remained in production in a similar
form as in previous years, and we'll get into how
its ingredients and preparations varied by manufacturer in just a bit.
Eventually it made its way to the American market, most
(11:39):
likely through Diceian Company. Prior to the American Revolutionary War,
the elixir was exported from Britain to colonial America, but
after eighteen hundred it was manufactured. It appears in Pennsylvania
by the Diattville Glassworks. Thomas W. Diot, owner of said
glass works in the eighteen thirties, was well known for
(12:00):
tempering the bottles for patent medicines that he sold around
the country.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
We are going to take a break for a word
from our sponsors now, and when we return, we'll talk
about the ingredients used to make this elixir and how
some differed from what was considered the original.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about ingredients like senna
and jalap and how manufacturers of the elixir over the
years changed its health claims.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
As we mentioned earlier in the episode, the top two
producers of this elixir were the Dicey and the Swinton brands.
Most published recipes that actually had attribution were associated with
these two specific manufacturer names as well, But one common
observation of the recipes from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(13:02):
was that Daffy's Elixir was very similar to a product
called tincture of Senna, which was sold by apothecaries and
druggists during that time. Sena tincture was an herbal remedy
used to relieve constipation and contained generally the leaves of
Senna alexandrina in an alcohol base. Its use went way
(13:23):
back before the time of a patent medicine's craze, but
it was available around the time many of these wannabe
Daffy's Elixir manufacturers were busy being wannabes. They could have
easily read about it, for instance, in Nicholas Culpeper's English
Physician and Complete Herbal which was written in seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
An early recipe for what was called true Daffy, dating
to seventeen hundred lists the following ingredients. This was only
twenty years, mind you, after Thomas Daffy died. Quote aniseed, brandy,
coconeel ella, campaign, fennel seed, jalla, manna, parsley seed, raisin, rhubarb, saffron, senna,
(14:05):
and Spanish liquorice. Modern analysis suggests, though they were mostly
made from alcohol, many forms of the elixir could function
as a laxative of note. Other older recipes included guwackened
wood chips, caraway seeds, and on occasion, coriander seeds.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So laxative that seems plausible toothaches debatable. Let's break down
these ingredients a bit. Using an alcoholic distillation as an
ingredient would have helped to preserve the elixir. Aniseed is
a folk remedy often used for indigestion, so that's on
brand for a purgative. Jollip, mana, and senna all have
(14:47):
laxative qualities. Raisins would have added sweetness, but also fiber. Rhubarb,
like raisins, would also have been a good source of fiber.
Those other ingredients, some of them may or may not
have anti inflammatory benefits. Coconeil does not have laxative properties,
but it's long been used to give things a really
(15:08):
deep red color. Add those alternative ingredients we mentioned too,
Guiacum wood chips were historically used to treat syphilis, not constipation,
and caraway and coriander may have helped with digestive conditions
like heartburn.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
In later years, the ingredients list differed depending on which
manufacturer you got your tonic from, but most often contained
a similar list to that one from seventeen hundred. It
was really amazingly consistent. The whole thing doesn't sound very tasty. Well.
It was said to be an acquired taste. Any alcohol
(15:46):
could be used, but the alcohols of choice for a
true elixir salutis were gin or brandy. In fact, in
the eighteen hundreds, when the product was at peak popularity,
gin was so popular as an ingredient that the name
Daffies became British slang for Jim.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Antique. Bottle Collector's ABC magazine published in twenty nineteen that
they had discovered, at least so far nearly thirty recipes
for Daffy's elixir across the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries,
including one that was handwritten, and unlike most other proprietary medicines,
(16:24):
you could if you wanted to just make them at home.
There were multiple recipes available to make small batches. The
Lady's Friend and Family Physical Library, published in seventeen eighty eight,
notes that quote this is an agreeable purge if there
is such a thing, and nothing more can be useful
than to keep it ready made for family use. Modern
(16:46):
Domestic Cookery and Useful Receipt Book from eighteen twenty nine
printed another version from William Augustus Henderson called quote the
true Daffy's elixir, and this was considered by many to
be the true do it yourself recipe.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So what's in that homebrew? Henderson's was as follows, quote
take five ounces of aniseeds, three ounces of fennel seeds,
four ounces of parsley seeds, six ounces of Spanish liquorice,
five ounces of senna, one ounce of rhubarb, three ounces
of ella campaign root, seven ounces of kiln, twenty one
(17:26):
DRAMs of saffron, six ounces of manna, two pounds of raisins,
a quarter of an ounce of cocaine, eel and two
gallons of brandy stone the raisins, slice the mots and
bruise the jallab, then mix the hole together, and after
letting them stand close covered for fifteen days, strain out
the elixir. If you look closely at it, that ingredient
(17:49):
list isn't too different from what manufacturers were producing, and
other make it yourself versions that we found contained spirit
of malt, sac or white wine, and liquorice shred. When
it came to method, of course, it varied a bit
among the home recipes as well.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Analysis of those recipes dating from as early as the
sixteen eighties, which is shortly after Thomas Daffy's death, through
eighteen fifty shows there are some ingredients that often overlap,
but there are three primary ingredients in common. And no,
it's not the fennel, the raisins and the rhubarb. It's
(18:27):
the senna, the jallab and the copious amounts of alcohol.
All of the Daffy's Elixir recipes have a high alcohol content,
ranging from around twenty five percent to more than fifty
percent by volume. Among the twenty seven recipes uncovered by
Antique Bottle Collector, twenty six are different versions, although some
(18:50):
of those recipes have identical ingredient lists with just differing
proportions and maybe slightly differing method and also sure transcre
ryption errors and other mistakes could have been made when
recipes were transferred between people and over generations. That's certainly
a really common problem with documents in general, as they're
shared and they evolve.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
We can't talk about a patent medicine without talking about
its dubious medical claims. And as there were many variations
of Daffy's elixir, there were also many claims it was
originally designed for toothaches, as we said, or maybe stomach ailments,
depending on what you read, but it doesn't matter. Daffy's
(19:33):
wasn't a single source remedy for long. By the early
nineteenth century, it was advertised as an elixir intended to
help the following ailments. And you should brace yourself because
this is going to take a minute. Quote the stone
in babes and children convulsion fits, consumption and bad digestives,
agus piles, surfeits, fits of the mother, and vapors from
(19:55):
the spleen, green sickness, children's distempers, whether the worms, rickets,
stones convulsions, gripes, king's evil, joint evil, or any other
disorder proceeding from wind or crudities, doubt and rheumatism, stone
or gravel in the kidneys, colic and griping of the bowels.
The this stick, both as cure and preventative, provided always
(20:18):
that the patient be moderate in drinking, have a care
to prevent taking cold, and keep to good diet. Dropsy
and scurvy. The frequent use of the medicine to treat colic,
gripes or fret in horses was deplored in early veterinary manuals.
Oh yeah, that's right. There were at least two recipes
found that were intended for veterinary use.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That is a long list, and as that long list shows,
in the end, it became, characteristically as most other quack medicines,
a product promoted as a cure all and a general
pick me up. Popular as it was while it was
claimed it could cure everything. This elixir probably couldn't cure anything.
(21:02):
But what it could do was get you drunk.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And on that note, would you like a little sip
of curious what ails you? Well?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yes I would.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Okay, this one gave me such a delicious inspiration and
I'm very glad and happy to report that it turned
out really well. So once we mentioned there's an ingredient,
we mentioned that's not any of the primaries that I
literally did the meerkat set up and went, let's put
that in a drink, and that is saffron.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh, one of the alternatives.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, yes, And once that came up, I knew exactly
what I wanted to do. And because gin was so
prominent in it and it was very alcohol forward, I
was like, we need to do a spirit forward drink
that features gin and saffron, And I thought, ooh, we
could mess with a gimlet and make something new. First
of all, you got to do a little infusion before
you're ready to make your drink. This is a prep
(21:59):
the day before situation. As an aside, I thought when
I was a kid that saffron was like for millionaires,
because every time my mom would make saffron bread, she
would make sure we knew how expensive that saffron had
been and we better appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I felt the same way.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
It is pricey compared to some other ingredients or herbs
or any kind of mix in you might use. But
it's also a nice case where a little goes quite
a long way. So for this, you need a pinch
of saffron, like I would say, less than a third
of a teaspoon. I get mine, and it comes in
like pre set little mini envelopes, and so I just
(22:38):
use it as in the envelope. It averages out to
like maybe a third of a teaspoon. Maybe you're being
very generous. You're gonna put that into an airtight container
with six ounces of gin, so you're gonna make a
lot more gin than you actually need. But if you,
as we've said before, if you shrink your amounts a
lot smaller, you start to mess with the proportions and
(22:59):
it doesn't quite work as well. So put those in
your eartight container. Give it a good shake. You'll notice
right away it starts to turn yellow. Leave it overnight
if you don't want to wait overnight six to eight hours.
You can shake it more if you want optional, but
it's fun to do. Then when you're done, you're still
gonna have those kind of little spindly threadlike pieces of
saffron that you'll strain out, and the gin will be
(23:21):
a beautiful golden yellow color. And it is time to
get ready to make your drink. So into your shaking tin,
you're gonna put two ounces of this saffron infused gin,
three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, three quarters
of an ounce of simple or vanilla syrup, and then
we're gonna add another ingredient that came up, which is
(23:41):
a half ounce of cognac. Shakey, shaky, shake with ice.
Strain it into a pre chilled cocktail glass. You will
not have ice in that glass. And then note how
absolutely beautiful it turns out and how absolutely beautiful it tastes.
I am obsessed with drink now. I gotta have saffron
(24:02):
all the time. I'm calling this one open secret since
Daffy's recipe was gonna open secret. I love this. I
love a spirit forward drink once in a while, and
this one was like exceptional. And what's really cool is
that there's a ton of gin in it, which a
lot of people don't like. And I really think people
that don't like gin might like this drink. So I
(24:24):
tested it on people that don't like gin and they
liked it.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
That's in its favor.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The mocktail is you're gonna use the same proportions for everything,
But instead of that two ounces of gin, you're gonna
use flat tonic to do your saffron and fusion. Make
sure it is very flat before you seal your thing
and shake it because you don't want any surprise explosions.
It's never fun. And then in lieu of kognac, you'll
only use half an ounce. But again this is a
(24:52):
proportion game. You're gonna use four ounces of white grape
juice and you're gonna soak it with a tea bag
of black tea. If you want to heat up your
white grape juice, that is totally fine. You really only
need to steep it for like ten minutes. You can
also cold steep it and give it more like forty
five minutes or an hour. That also works fine. But
you basically just want to give that white grape juice
(25:13):
a fuller body and a bigger flavor than it has
on its own, because that is going to help balance
out all those other ingredients. And that is you make
it exactly the same. So it's a two ounces of
your saffron infused fluid, whether that be gin or flattonic,
three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, three quarters
of an ounce with simpler vanilla syrup and then just
a half ounce of cognac or your tea infused white
(25:36):
grape juice. Delicious.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That sounds both of them sound delicious, both versions.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You want it so cold and it's so good. Now
I just have to be constantly infusing gin with saffron
and then you'll feel fancy if you grew up like
me getting yelled at about how expensive saffron is.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Oh, I think that might be our age group.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
That is the open secret. It is a lot of alcohol.
So it is one that we want you to be
very careful with. Drink responsibly always. We will be right
back here next week with another tale of snake oil
and another drink to go with it. Criminalia is a
(26:18):
production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Maria Trimarchi
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