Remembering Bridport-made Fudge’s Firewater cough medicine

Amazingly, it survived both the 1968 Medicines Act that outlawed many proprietary medicines, and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.

But at the end of 2005, a change in pharmacy regulations banned home prepared medicines containing controlled drugs (like Fudge’s Firewater) being sold over the counter.

Back in the 1950s, Ken Fudge started to make and sell his own range of cough syrups, indigestion mixtures and throat pastilles only from his pharmacy in West Allington, next door to Balson's the Butchers.

Ken Fudge's West Allington Pharmacy during a flood (Image: Photo kindly supplied by Richard Balson) His Mentholated Honey Syrup was a dark brown syrupy liquid made by mixing menthol crystals and a little fudge (it's in the name) flavouring into Gee’s Linctus, itself an old-fashioned cough remedy dating from the Victorian era.

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In the brew were several potentially active ingredients, including morphine. Squill, a plant extract, was another potentially active component in the medicine that also contained alcohol at similar levels to a fortified wine.

An older Bottle of Fudge's Firewater (Image: Courtesy of Jamie Dibdin) All of these delights must have added to the Firewater experience, but it was the menthol that made the potion so memorable, and the Firewater branding ensured its success.

Very soon, it established a shared experience among those who used it, believed in it and benefited from it. If it tasted this strong, it must be doing some good.

As a result, it became extremely popular and sold in very substantial quantities.

People travelled long distances to buy it. Holidaymakers reportedly often went home laden with extensive supplies, and during some winters as many as 250 bottles of Fudge’s Firewater were sold each week at the East Street Pharmacy with no advertising.

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Firewater was not for the faint hearted, but its fans were effusive in their praise; ‘A brilliant cough mixture, couldn’t beat it.

Take too much of it and you hallucinate’ ‘Please, if there is a God, bring back Fudge’s Firewater’ and ‘It nearly blew your head off, but by golly it did the trick’.

A bottle of Fudge's Firewater (Image: Bridport Museum Trust) Local writer Margery Hookings recalled that: "It tasted like red diesel mixed with the finest brandy - lovely.

"And as it shifted your fever you hallucinated at the same time.

"I remember being tucked up in bed with flu in my damp rented cottage in the middle of nowhere and peeping out of the covers to see a demon-like face made up of lots of dots, zigzagging all over the woodchip wallpaper.

"One minute it was smiling, the next scowling, possibly at the interior design. Scary but interesting."

It was not the easiest medicine to take, and some patients commented on this, referring to ‘the Fudge’s shudder’.

‘It was a trial to take, but you knew it would make you better’ .

Even now, many years after the medicine was discontinued, the mere mention of Fudge’s Firewater evokes a warm wave of nostalgia and longing in many Bridport people.