SC - fizzy drinks

[Stefan li Rous]

Master Cariadoc said: 
> On the other hand, Digby is also a good example of the hazards of 
> doing so. I've seen it asserted--how good the evidence is I don't 
> know--that the use of bottles designed to hold fermented drinks under 
> pressure was a new idea at the time, possibly due to Digby himself. 
> If that is right, then the fizzy small mead (Digby's "weak honey 
> drink") that we make probably didn't exist in period, at least in 
> anything very close to the form we make it.

I think this is probably right on the bottles, although can't you store
a fizzy drink reasonably well in a barrel or cask? Or is the barrel
too permiable? I've heard this mentioned in regards to champagne before.
But doesn't champagne develop higher presures than a bubbly mead? I'm
thinking perhaps the better bottles were needed to keep the champagne
but it was the development of cork stoppers that first allowed the
use of bubbly beverages and was slightly earlier than the invention
of champagne. 

Anyone have more definite info?

(Yes, I know Ras, yet another wild theory.)

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
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