SC - kitchen in a krak

[Stefan li Rous]

Gunthar asked: 
> > This is From Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, ed. by Karen Hess:
> >
> > # 290  TO MAKE CINNAMON WATER - c. 1550 to 1625
> > Put 3 quarts of red rose water & one quart of white wine into a limbeck of
> > glass.  yn bruise 2 pound of cinnamon & put therein, & let it stand 12
> >
> 
> > HTH,
> >
> > Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
> 
> After re-reading this post I noticed something. Now this has no sweetner
> as we consider cordials and liqueurs to be. So I would think of using
> a very sweet dessert wine. But then I notice that the proportions of
> rosewater to wine as 3 to 1.  If this is using the distilled rosewater we
> all know and love I would think this would taste pretty nasty. Would
> "red rose water" be more like a rose "tea" infusion? Does the book
> give instructions on the preparation of red rose water?

Possibly you missed a very important line here as you clipped it out.
The whole recipe reads:
> # 290  TO MAKE CINNAMON WATER - c. 1550 to 1625
> Put 3 quarts of red rose water & one quart of white wine into a limbeck of
> glass.  yn bruise 2 pound of cinnamon & put therein, & let it stand 12
> hours in luke warme water close stopt.  then still it in water on a gentle
> fire, but it may not be taken out of ye glass reserve, the first comeing
> of, for it will be much ye better.

The phrase I'm thinking of is "then still it in water on a gentle
> fire, but it may not be taken out of ye glass reserve, the first comeing
> of, for it will be much ye better."

Possibly the red rose water is stimply an infusion of roses steeped 
in water but not distilled. Since you are going to be distilling
it later anyway, why use distilled rose water in the first place? At
least that is my take on the phrase.
- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****