[Ansteorra] Re: [Ansteorra-announce] Brewing and Vintning Competition at Lughnasad

[Mark.S Harris]

Greetings Padraig,

I will be off at Pennsic during your event, so this doesn't affect
me personally, but I'm curious why you are disallowing cordials?

I see this indicated in two places:
1) no specific category for this
2) you make it illegal to add additional alcohol to a beverage.

I do think this is a good requirement for the categories you
mention, since the only period version, as far as I know, would
be some fortified wines such as sherry and introducing non-period
ingredients including extra alcohol gets us further away from
creating authentic period beverages.

However, most period cordials appear to be made by soaking spices
in wine, and sometimes other alcoholic beverages, then distilling
these.  Because it is illegal (in the USA) to distill beverages
without a license, the only way to come close to a period cordial
is to use a previously distilled beverage such as brandy or vodka
to steep the spices in.

For those who might say cordials were not made in period or that
distilled beverages weren't period, take a look at the evidence
given in these files in the BEVERAGES section of the Florilegium:
bev-distilled-msg(118K)  9/22/00    Medieval distilled beverages.
Distilling.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/bev-distilled-msg.html
cordials-msg     (106K)  5/16/01    Period cordials and liqueurs. SCA
creations.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/cordials-msg.html

And two well-written articles that won high honors at a Middle
Kingdom A&S event, even though she did not even have her AoA then:
Apricot-Crdal-art (12K)  6/30/00    "Apricot Cardamom Cordial"
                                       by Constance de LaRose.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/Apricot-Crdal-art.html
Kiwi-cordial-art  (10K)  6/23/00    "Prickly Gooseberry, Mango,
Cardamom,
                                       Cordial" by Constance de LaRose.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/BEVERAGES/Kiwi-cordial-art.html

Again Padraig, it is your contest and your event, so I'm not saying
you have to allow something or not. But I am curious as to the
reasoning for this. I have posted this to the Ansteorra list in the
hope that perhaps others will learn something from this message or
be intrigued enough to pursue things on their own.

THLord Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net

Padraig O'Maolagain wrote:
> Brewers and Vintners!
>
> Bring your best creations to enter in the Brewing and Vintning Competition at Lughnasad!
>
> The categories are:
>
> Ales and Beers
> Lagers and Bochs
> Wines and Meads
> Non-Alcoholic
>
> All alcohol content must be the result of natural fermentation (no added alcohol).  Documentation can be as simple as a list of your ingredients and methods.
>
> Prizes for all categories!