Cronk: Long-lost beverage resurrected after 120 years
I had no idea that you could still buy sassafras commercially, let alone that you could put it <i>in</i> things and <i>sell</i> those things commercially. The main constituent of sassafras oil, safrole, is 1. a direct precursor of MDMA, and 2. has most of the same effects, though less powerfully.<p>Original-recipe &quot;root beers&quot; and &quot;sarsaparillas&quot; used to contain sassafras oil; and it was the sassafras oil that lent them a lot of their unique flavor (and &quot;uplifting quality&quot; as a patent medicine, in an era when cocaine was a thing you&#x27;d find in a soda.)<p>The modern interpretations of both drinks, though—even from indie brewers going for authenticity—always exclude the sassafras oil. Much to the detriment of the flavor-profile of the drink: they&#x27;re like decaf coffee with no replacement bitterant!<p>I always assumed that sassafras oil had just become a controlled substance in most countries. But maybe it was just the US where it&#x27;s controlled, and nobody had been bothering to try to brew &quot;authentic original-recipe root beer&#x2F;sarsaparilla&quot; anywhere else until now? (It would make sense, seeing as those drinks weren&#x27;t really a thing anywhere <i>other than</i> North America, and so it&#x27;s only really the US and Canada where people would show much interest.)<p>Good on this brewer for having enough faith in the Canadian indie beer market to brew something that very likely <i>can&#x27;t</i> be exported to the US. Maybe it&#x27;ll draw some US tourists to come north to try it, though!