Captain Cook's first beer brewed in New Zealand in 1773; similarly, Yards Brewing Company says its Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale is based upon a recipe for spruce beer recorded by Benjamin Franklin. Spruce-flavored fermented sugar beverages Alcoholic spruce beer may also be made from sugar and flavoring from the spruce tree. Leaves, small branches, or extracted essence of spruce are boiled with sugar and fermented with yeast. Two different sources of sugar may be used, either molasses or white refined sugar. A recipe for home-brewing spruce beer of this type appeared in 1974 in Cape Breton's Magazine. Soft drinks In the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Quebec, where it is known in French as bière d'épinette, spruce beer may refer to either an artificially flavored non-alcoholic carbonated soft drink, or to genuine spruce beer. The latter is now made only by a few microbreweries. References External links Soft drinks Soft beers and malt drinks Canadian drinks Types of beer Indigenous cuisine in Canada Maritime culture Cuisine of Quebec Canadian alcoholic drinks