[Sca-cooks] viking food and fall fruit

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise:
>I'm thinking about drinks, and I'd say maybe barley water as the closest
>to small beer? Maybe a honey drink to resemble small mead?

Were you present at Southern Region War Camp for the discussion on 
unusual beverages for SCA use? Seeing as it is a Viking-ish event, 
you might make a simple "tea" out of malt (in which case you'd have 
to mash and rack it) or malt extract (in which case you would not), 
suitably flavored with herbs. I'm sure between you and, say, John 
Marshall, you could come up with a nice flavoring gruit. Maybe 
something with sage.

This drink is known as ale (or rather, øl). While it should be 
fermented, it is also spoken of in sagas as being drunk on the same 
day it is mashed, so drinking it flat and unfermented would not be 
much of a stretch at all. If you're not fermenting the stuff, and 
just using malt to flavor and add a little body to the water (which 
will then taste just a tad like Arizona Iced Tea), even using malt 
extract would be well within your budget, I suspect.

I don't have  a lot of details available on this, but it's basically 
a matter of stirring ingredients together and chilling the result a 
little. I can probably figure out a recipe if you need real 
details... but the drink would be, in substance, a pretty darned 
period-appropriate solution, and for those that like malt, a tasty 
one (most brewers taste the wort before pitching the yeast anyway).

Adamantius

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