[Sca-cooks] Any references to peaches being used in period brewing?

[Stefan li Rous]

I have a good article on period peaches that was submitted to me for the Florilegium. The original purpose was to research peach use in medieval brewing. However, the author could not find any use of peaches in period brewing. No peach cider, for instance. No peach wine or peach cordials.

I suggested that perhaps he wasn't using the right words in his search. His reply was:
"I was thumbing through all kinds of texts - a couple translations of Spanish (melacolon), several Italian (pesca), one middle eastern (jheftali), and a slew of English speaking. Also, some Latin (persicum.) One of the Spanish texts is where I located the blurb about chopped fruits (as opposed to fruit juice) in red wine. The apricot and plum references were peculiar to one region of Hungary and Austria, where they were used with malted grains to make a type of distilled beverage that seems similar to schnapps. Sadly, it looks like the fruit wasn't added until more than 100 years post-period, which is why I skipped over it in the article.

Any help from a professional librarian, or anyone else more well-read than me, is always appreciated."

I know that some of you here have skills in translating or are professional librarians.

So, if you have evidence of peach brewing or cordials in period, could you please let THL Madoc Arundel, madoc_arundel at yahoo.com . If you don't post this to the list, I'd like to see a copy as well, as I had assumed of course they made alcoholic peach beverages even if not cordials.

What are we missing? Or, is my previous idea, that while expensive spices were used in distilling, cheap fruits were considered, ah, too cheap, to use there? actually have a basis?

Thanks,
  Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****