HERB - long pepper

Pug Bainter pug at pug.net
Tue Jul 21 05:46:39 PDT 1998


Lady Peyton said something that sounded like:
> I might add that unless you are interested in winemaking the
> recipes are useless.

I wouldn't call that useless. *grin*

> There are no brewing recipes whatsoever and the
> cordial recipes always use wine (either finished, in full ferment or
> distilled) except one which calls for actually grafting a grape vine. 
> Sugar is never an ingredient so the results aren't the sweet, heavy
> bodied liqueur one thinks of when they hear the word "cordial." 

Unless there is something I don't understand (which is likely), they are
probably combinations of hypocras and cordial recipes. As I understand
the difference, hypocras is simply wine (fermenting or final) with spices
and herbs (sometimes with milk/cream) and cordials are distilled at some
point. (either before or after the spiced/herbs are added)

The sweetness some people associate with these can still be done by
simply adding sugar of some sort if they must.

You may be asking yourself "what is the difference between a herb wine
and a fermented hypocras?", the answer is "I haven't the foggiest idea."

> >     At a guess, it'll always taste medicinal, but serious aging might help.
> > (2-5 yrs?)
> Period wines were not aged longer than one year.

This is certainly true of most recipes I've seen.

> Since thay were bulk
> stored in wooden casks they didn't last any longer without oxidation
> or vinigration.

I don't honestly know if this is the reason or not. It may be due to
poor construction of the casks that this happened. Things can be stored
in wooden casks longer than that, and often are/were.

   NOTE: In a lot of period recipes they called for topping off the cask
         at different intervals because of leakage. This is to keep a
         layer of air from getting on top and possibly spoiling the wine.

As well, within 3 recipes in Digby (it was handy [strange what I keep in
my office at work] and only slightly out of period) I found a metheglyn
(spiced mead) that was to be aged 2 years in order to allow the hops
and spices to completely dissolve away. It gave directions on how to
properly rack if you wished to drink it sooner than that. (It involved
ladeling the wine out.)

> Due to the ingredients used in the recipes in this
> book (including "Wine from Memory") they wouldn't have been aged
> either.  

Most hypocras are aged a *very* short time before serving. I am honestly
not surprised by the medicinal taste though since it states that it's
for memory and not for pleasure. As well since it only uses 1/2 gallon of
wine, it's not like it was meant to be drank at a festival or anything.

I thought it quite humorous when I was read the recipe thinking, "why
did they say 7 lbs and not a half gallon" and then you putting it on the
bathroom scale. I could see me doing that to make sure I wasn't off in
my assumption. I'm just glad that my conversions are starting to get
better from weight to volume.

Thank you very much for the recipe and reference!

I read the digest version so don't get to respond that quickly at
times.

Btw, speaking from my own experience, those things made with pepper take
a very long time to not taste medicinal to our modern tastes. After
proper aging for modern tastes, drinks like this are drinkable around
the campfire. (Although I've been doing them in small enough batches
that I don't plan on doing that.)

(Sorry for getting too far off the herbal topic at points!)

Ciao,

-- 
Phelim "Pug" Gervase  | "I want to be called. COTTONTIPS. There is something 
Barony of Bryn Gwlad  |  graceful about that lady. A young woman bursting with 
House Flaming Dog     |  vigor. She blinked at the sudden light. She writes
pug at pug.net           |  beautiful poems. When ever shall we meet again?"
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