From: justcoz@triton.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.brewing
Subject: Mead
Summary: A Treatise on the History of Mead, part 2 (recipe included)
Date: 17 Apr 92 11:51:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.+31j7=l
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque


	As the centuries progressed, mead tended to decline somewhat. 
Beekeepers still made mead, and good mead, but fashions tended to change.  
	Among ordinary people, mead ramained essentially the same; it 
continued as a wine generally reserved for special occasions, particularly
weddings.  Most people know that the word "honeymoon" comes from the practise
of drinking honey wines during the month-long celebrations which followed
better class weddings, but not everyone knows that in some places it was the
custom to pack the bride off to bed and then fill up the groom with mead
until he could not stand.  At this point, he was carried to bed alongside
his bride and it was the common belief that he would then sire a son that
very night.  If, by chance, the bride did conceive and bear a son nine months
later, the maker of the mead was complimented upon the quality of his brew.
	On the other hand, there grew up a whole range of metheglins, many 
of which were intended purely as medicines, and court circles indulged
themselves in ever more complicated pyments.
	In Elizabethan times, when drinking standards reached their lowest
ebb, hundreds of different recipes for pyments were in circulation.  These
pyments were not true pyments made from fermenting grape juice with honey,
but were concoctions of mead with spices, syrups, grape wines and many odd
substances.  Already sweet meads were sweetened further, and so many spices
were added to some that the bouquet must have been raather like after-shave
lotion.
	Queen Elizabeth's own royal recipe for mead has survived to this day,
although no brewer in his senses would want to make such a sickley concoction.
The following is a modern adaptation of Her Majesty's recipe which should
prove satisfactory insofar as the herbs are infused in the finished mead. 
This enables the brewer to exercise much greater control over how much herb
flavor is imparted to the drink.

			QUEEN ELIZABETH'S MEAD

Ingredients:
	3 1/2 lbs Honey
	1/4 tsp Acid Blend
	1 tbls Yeast Nutrient
	1/2 oz Rosemary
	1/2 oz Bay Leaves
	1/2 oz Thyme
	1/4 oz Sweet Briar
	1 Campden Tablet
	1 pkg Madeira Yeast
	1 gal water

	In the primary, dissolve the honey, acid blend, yeast nutrient and
yeast in 1 gallon of luke-warm water.  Add the campden tablet.  Attatch airlock and let sit until ferment is complete (about 3 - 5 weeks).  Syphon off sediment
into secondary and let sit for 6 months.  When wine is 6 months old, rack back 
into primary. Place herbs in nylon straining bag (securely tied) and place in
primary.  Taste the wine daily until the flavor extracted from the herbs is
satisfactory, then remove the bag of herbs.  Mature for at least an additional
6 months, racking every 2 months to aid clearing.

	Remember, making mead requires a little more patience than making beer.
But when it's ready, it will surely have been worth the wait.   
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From: John.DeCarlo@p109.f131.n109.z1.fidonet.org (John DeCarlo)
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