HERB - Wormwood

[Rauthulfr]

Would you care to publish the recipe?
  I suspect that the wormwood would be added in the same manner which 
Harrison says his wife does?
   "But before she putteth her first woort into the furnace, or mingleth it 
with the hops, she taketh out a vessel full, of eight or nine gallons, 
which she shutteth up close, and suffereth no aire to come into it till it 
become yellow, and this she reserveth by it selfe unto further use, as 
shall appeare hereafter, calling it Brackwoort or Charwoort, and as she 
saith it addeth also to the colour of the drinke, whereby it yeeldeth not 
unto amber or fine gold in hew unto the eie....
Finallie hen she settith hir drinke together, whe addeth to hir brackwoort 
or charwoort halfe an ounce of arras and half a quartine of an ounce of 
baiberries finelie powdered, then putteth the same into her woort with an 
handful of wheate floure."
("The Description of England", by William Harrison, 1577)

In which case I suspect that the result would be more equivalent to a 
tisane than to a decoction.  and some of the more bitter qualities which 
would come out in the boil would not be released.  And I suspect that if 
the ratio was something like an ounce to five gallons the danger would not 
be too marked...if the beverage was sampled

.75 ounces = 21.3 grams
9 gallons would give 34.07 liters

Harrison's formula would give about .6 grams per liter, which means that 
the amounts of wormwood ingested would remain below the clinical doses 
indicated as safe in the PDRH.  Although I still would recommend 
caution...particularly if any of those who might partake could be pregnant.

At 01:55 PM 3/25/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Rauthulfr wrote:
>
> > Greetings from Rauthulfr;
> > I suspect that you will find that most of your sources also use tansy,
> > pennyroyal, black hellebore and numerous other very powerful
> > plants.
>
>Yep.  As I said, I have the historical stuff.
>
>
> > Artemisia absinthium is a member of a group of about 200
> > species.  A. absinthium is the "official" or recognized medicinal member of
> > the family.
>
>I know.  I've heard word of mouth that some of the other varieties don't 
>have the
>thujone content, but none of my (admittedly limited) modern sources tell 
>me one
>way or the other.  If I find out that Roman wormwood has almost the same
>bitterness without the nasty stuff, I'll use it instead, since Culpepper 
>mentions
>it.
>
>
> > The use of volatile oils and spirituous
> > extracts from the drug for the manufacture of alcoholic drinks is forbidden
> > in many countries because of possible injuries to health.
>
>The US is one of them.
>
>
> >
> > Granted, the amount of A. absinthium which would be likely to be present in
> > beer would probably be much less than the amounts indicated here for a
> > clinical dose, but I would suggest avoiding the use of this herb.
>
>Much, much less.  The wormwood acts as a bittering agent in place of hops, and
>would be a much weaker infusion.  In case I wasn't clear, I'm interested 
>in gruit
>ales, and I've got a recipe for Wormwood beer I intend to redact.   I'm 
>trying to
>decide whether to use common Wormwood or Roman Wormwood.  I'm fairly 
>certain that
>the actual recipe is for the common variety, but as Roman was around in period
>I'll happily substitute if it doesn't have the high concentrations of thujone.
>I'm also looking for artichoke leaves for the same project.
>
>-Magdalena
>
>
>
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RauthulfR Meistari inn Orthstori (OL, mCE, P-eX, Et Cetera)
or, non-SCA: Michael Wolfe M. A. I. S. AB-
*Practice Random Acts of Chocolate.....

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