Making Spiced Wine in 1559

 

Another one from Ask The Past

 

This is for adding spice to your wine. Sounds tasty. I had to look up a lot of stuff for this one. Once in a great while I will get a bottle of mead from Cost Plus World Market and it usually comes with a packet of spices that you can put in it. It also recommends trying it warmed up. I didn’t care for it that way. I prefer it cold after the spices have steeped a long time.

 

Cinnamon: an ounce and a half

Ginger: iii drams (2.25 teaspoons)

Cardamom: ii drams (1.5 teaspoons)

Folium (folium is Latin for ‘leaf’ – it doesn’t specify what kind of leaf) - a dram ( ¾ of a teaspoon) 

Galangal (galangal is a common name for several tropical spices – you can use ginger instead) - a dram ( ¾ of a teaspoon) 

Spikenard (aromatic, amber essential oil-used in Bible times as an incense offering in the Temple, and for preparing a body for burial) – half a dram

Caraway (also known as meridian fennel) – half a dram

Long pepper or black: iiii drams (3 teaspoons) Long pepper is the fruit of a flowering vine and is dried and used for spices. It’s hotter than black pepper.

 

If it be made for rich men, add: Cloves, nutmegs, maces, grains of paradice (relative of ginger and cardamom, with a peppery flavor) ii drams each

Clarified honey: a pint – I did look up clarified honey. It sounds tedious to make

4 pints of good wine

If you can’t get honey, use a pound (!) of sugar instead

 

If this drink be rightly made, it shall be profitable against many diseases, specially cold, and in old men, and them that be somewhat weak & feeble unto copulation.

It shall be convenient for Fleumaticke & Melancholik persons marvelously, that not without a cause it may be called Manus Dei, that is the Hand of God.

It putteth away dumpishnes & sadness, and bringeth mirth. It openeth the obstructions and stoppings of the spleen.

 

The paragraph above I modernized some of the spelling, but left the language. I get a kick out of the fact that way back in history spelling was arbitrary. I have often thought of doing some of my creative writing in that way. It would be a hoot.

 

So anyway, if you’re feeling dumpy or sad or unmirthful or feeble in copulation…this is the drink for you! Hand to God!