Metheglin recipe ( was Re: [Sca-cooks] OT: We're in the honey!)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 3 Apr 2002, at 6:31, Avraham haRofeh wrote:

> Recipe, please? If it's too OT, send it privately. :-)

This is the original recipe.  It's from "Martha Washington's Booke of
Cookery", a Tudor/Jacobean family cookbook which was inherited
by the first First Lady.

To Make Metheglin

Take a quart of honey & 6 quarts of wat[er].  let it boyle ye third
part away, & boyle [with] it 3 races of ginger.  when it is cold, put it
[in] a pot which hath a spicket, & put yeast into [it] & let it stand 3
dayes, then bottle it up & put into yr bottles a little leamon & a
stick of cinna[mon] & a few raysons of the sun.  & let it be a
fortnig[ht] befor you drink it.

What I did:

Mostly I followed the directions.  I boiled the honey and water until
it was reduced by one third.  "Races" of ginger are roots.  Because
3 whole fresh ginger roots would be overwhelming, I used slices of
fresh ginger to equal 1/2 oz.  It later occured to me that perhaps
dried ginger roots might be meant.  I'll try it that way next time.

When cold, I put it into a gallon glass jug, and added 1/2 TBS
bread yeast, dissolved in a small amount of honey-water.  In one of
his recipes for metheglin (which is spiced mead, if'n you didn't
know), Digby says to use bread yeast or ale yeast.  I put a
fermentation lock on top, and let it do its thing for 3 days.  This
morning, I siphoned the metheglin into another jug containing 2
cinnamon sticks, the juice of 1 lemon, and 1 TBS of raisins.  I
replaced the fermentation lock.  And now I wait.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net