# Bochet, Druid Mead, Viking Mead, Strawberry and vanilla mead



## YourCaptain

Today was a busy day. Got 5 liters of each made... 
Pictures will come later.
If you plan to make Bochet before my next post giving details... 
Tip: let the honey cool down before adding water... #thingsIwishIknew


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## WVMountaineerJack

Some people have said they add hot water that was heated on the stovetop and didnt get a big splash???? WVMJ


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## seth8530

Please post those recipies and pics. We always love to share.


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## Downwards

What is druid mead and viking mead? Sounds like a productive day!


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## YourCaptain

WVMountaineerJack said:


> Some people have said they add hot water that was heated on the stovetop and didnt get a big splash???? WVMJ



Well, I didn't know that at the time. So I added cold water to boiling honey... 
Thinking back, this was a terrible idea...
My entire kitchen was covered in a toffee like syrup that harden immediately on contact...
Here a pic during cleanup...


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## YourCaptain

Downwards said:


> What is druid mead and viking mead? Sounds like a productive day!



Productive indeed...






I have friends who are pagan. The use mead as part of various rituals. I found traditional druid and viking mead recipes. They just variations on each other really. Recipes coming soon


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## YourCaptain

seth8530 said:


> Please post those recipies and pics. We always love to share.



Recipes coming soon...

As for pics...
















And I have no idea why my pics rotate when they upload. They are the right way up on my phone.


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## fatbloke

The first two pic's of the batches in the pans, look like a Tikka Masala and Thai curry recipes, waiting to be cooked down to reduce before serving with rice ::

See some of those naming terms you've used I have a bit of an issue with. How the f**k do the writers of the recipes know that druids made meads like this or vikings made meads like that ?

Neither group were known to record much in writing etc so what they might have used can only be a guesstimate. Some from proper scientific findings, from archaeological study and some from Hollywood fantasy.

I'm not criticising your efforts at producing different brews, just that we have no way of knowing whether X made this or Y made that (plus it perpetuates the mumbo jumbo talked about in respect of meads and mead making). Hell even the few archaic recipes that float around the net only seem to go back like 5 or 6 hundred years, and even those ones are light on detail.

I've no idea about the "viking" or "druid" ones, other than they might be better described as methyglyn or maybe hippocras ?

Whereas, the strawb/vanilla one ? Well you'll likely find that to keep anything in the way of colour and flavour from the fruit, it needs to be added to the batch after it's actually finished fermenting. Strawberries don't actually have that strong a flavour and most of what they do have is from the sugars, plus fermented strawberry wines tend to come out "straw" coloured.

I'd have thought that adding the fruit to secondary, along with a good dose of pectic enzyme would more likely give you some colour and flavour. 

Equally, vanilla is a flavour best extracted by alcohol (check the label on most bottles of Vanilla Extract, and they generally have to state an alcohol content, even if that's not why or what they're being sold as).

As for heating honey ? That's generally considered as a big "No-No", bochet recipes are different as the heating/burning/caramelisation is intentional (and read some of Jacks stuff, he's got some brilliant ideas about heating honey in safer ways, than open boiling - which tends to reduce the water making the honey more like toffee than honey, and it feels like burning plastic if it hits bare skin). Honey is one of natures most anti-bacterial, anti-fungal materials, and heating it just boils off/ruins a lot of the aromatics and varietal flavours.

If you're a little paranoid about possible contaminants, just mix the water and honey at room temperature and then add campden tablets/sulphites and then leave it for a few days before pitching the yeast....... usually does the trick.


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## YourCaptain

Wow. That was mouthful. 

1st - whether they are or are not the actual recipes is of course highly contentious. What I do know is that mead is used in many pagan festivals and my friends are delighted that they will be having a homemade batch (authentic or not) when it's time for yule and hand-fastening later this year.

2nd - as for the heating and when to add what... I've been making wine for two months, and this was my first attempt with honey. I'm heavily reliant on recipes and the comments on this forum. So your comments are noted, and will be taken into consideration for future endeavors. And should vanilla and the other fruit need to be added later, it's not too late... At least I didn't find out later it should have been added earlier


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## fatbloke

YourCaptain said:


> Wow. That was mouthful.
> 
> 1st - whether they are or are not the actual recipes is of course highly contentious. What I do know is that mead is used in many pagan festivals and my friends are delighted that they will be having a homemade batch (authentic or not) when it's time for yule and hand-fastening later this year.


I'm sure you've worked out, I'm very sceptical about all that sort of stuff..... Sure, it would seem that "they" may have had some sort of mead type drink, it's just that as the years pile up, I get even more cynical about such things (nonsense ? dunno, depends on the individual point of view eh ?). I don't follow why people can't accept meads for what they are i.e. meads, albeit made using modern wine making techniques. Hell even some of the so called "type" names are modern bollocks, just invented/made up by whoever to make these type of brews sound old/authentic.

I'm pretty sure that any pagan/druid/devil worshipper/whatever type would be pretty pleased to have something that has been alluded to in various scripts, even if it's nature/recipe/method is of dubious provenance. 


> 2nd - as for the heating and when to add what... I've been making wine for two months, and this was my first attempt with honey. I'm heavily reliant on recipes and the comments on this forum. So your comments are noted, and will be taken into consideration for future endeavours. And should vanilla and the other fruit need to be added later, it's not too late... At least I didn't find out later it should have been added earlier


Brilliant. 

You may find that honey can be a bit of a bugger too deal with. Even once it's diluted down to a fermentable level, it still seems to play tricks on us i.e. the basic lack of nutrients, the erratic pH swings (especially with traditionals), potential osmotic shock when yeasts encounter honey musts that are basically just too high in sugars, etc etc

When using spices, it's handy to remember that a little can go a long way. If you read up the JAO recipe, Joe points out about using cloves and recommends 1 or 2 per gallon. They are powerful and over use can easily render a batch undrinkable (they're also one that extracts well in alcohol). Hence it does seem best to suggest use half of what might be recommended in a recipe, then taste, more are/is easily added if needed but a pain, ney even impossible to remove if to much.

Whole spices are more controllable too, powdered/ground spices are easily over done and difficult to remedy.

With the heating (excluding bochets), many older recipes suggest it, but it seems to be a discredited method. Even crystalised honey will dissolve in water if just left alone for a couple of days, then stir the hell out of it. I don't heat any honey now (haven't done for about 3 or 4 years). 

Dunno how it is getting supplies your neck of the woods, haven't seen many posting from SA. The Aussies and Kiwi's don't seem to do to badly though as ever, it does seem that the best range of stuff is available in the US. I get some stuff here, some from a place in Belgium (Brouwland) and some stuff mail ordered from the US. What's the honey situation like ? lots of varietals or does it tend to be wild flower and blended stuff ?

Good luck with the recipes though, it'd be great if you can post them or link them......


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## Downwards

Yep, I would tend to agree with the notion that know body knows what people drank back then, even with names being the same. I'm reading a book currently called inventing wine, which seems to be proving that through every age folks made wine in ways that would nearly be unrecognizable to folks in another age. These beverages have evolved immensely, I'm not really sure that any of us would even find some of the older beverages palatable if we could try them.

That said, those are fine names for your meads if that's what you would like to call them, and if that's how you would like to honor these old traditions. Making mead certainly is an old tradition itself. 

Have you heard anything about the herb meadow sweet? There seems to be some information on the records that it was used in old meads. Might be worth looking into if you want to add something to your recipes that would have likely been there, even if the end result will be your own product. 

Have fun!


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## YourCaptain

fatbloke said:


> You may find that honey can be a bit of a bugger too deal with. Even once it's diluted down to a fermentable level, it still seems to play tricks on us i.e. the basic lack of nutrients, the erratic pH swings (especially with traditionals), potential osmotic shock when yeasts encounter honey musts that are basically just too high in sugars, etc etc...
> 
> With the heating (excluding bochets), many older recipes suggest it, but it seems to be a discredited method. Even crystalised honey will dissolve in water if just left alone for a couple of days, then stir the hell out of it. I don't heat any honey now (haven't done for about 3 or 4 years).
> 
> Dunno how it is getting supplies your neck of the woods, haven't seen many posting from SA. The Aussies and Kiwi's don't seem to do to badly though as ever, it does seem that the best range of stuff is available in the US. I get some stuff here, some from a place in Belgium (Brouwland) and some stuff mail ordered from the US. What's the honey situation like ? lots of varietals or does it tend to be wild flower and blended stuff ?
> 
> Good luck with the recipes though, it'd be great if you can post them or link them......



Let me start by saying that although South Africa has a HUGE commercial wine industry, and a developing craft beer market, home wine making is almost unheard of. Equipment is not the easiest to get hold of, and when you can, the price is quite hefty. A silly example - it was cheaper for me to buy fermentation locks online in the USA and have them shipped to South Africa, than buy them at my local homebrew shop. There are no wine kits available, unless I have COMPLETELY missed them on google. To top it all off, we dont have the huge variety of yeast that I hear you guys speak about. That being said, when it comes to the fresh ingredients, fruit and honey etc - we have more than enough at reasonable prices. The honey I got came from a local honey farmer, fresh (was harvested in the previous week), completely unprocessed. It was honey from the bluegum tree (not sure if that is only a local tree come to think of it??) and tasted great. 

As I said, next time I'll try not heating it up. Although I must mention that I used the pot to heat the fruit and spices, and then just added the honey and water to mix in there. I didnt have it on the heat for longer than 5 min (except of course the bochet which was heated for an hour) so hopefully I didnt loose too much.

I was warned about honey giving problems, and was advised to add Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) to assist in the fermentation process. Hopefully this helps.

Promise everyone recipes are on there way soon


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## WVMountaineerJack

THere is always an argument about boil or not to boil. The common concept now is that boiling evoporates most of the fragrance of the honey and that would be common sense. THe other is that it destroys the enzymes in the honey, but of course so does the alcohol, precipitation and fining since enzymes are proteins. Somne people think boiled meads clear faster while others think the raw ones do, its all individual as to what you like. You might want to buy some yeasts online and get a yeast culturing/freezing kit and make your own for future use or try somehow to keep a culture going. Are the local wineries resistant to visits from homewinemakers? Would they sell you some bottles, corks and yeast plus nutrients or would they rather just not bother with you?

I am always interested in what homewinemakers do with unual fruit from other countries, what have you guys got down there that most of the world typically doesnt get to taste?

WVMJ


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## YourCaptain

WVMountaineerJack said:


> Are the local wineries resistant to visits from homewinemakers? Would they sell you some bottles, corks and yeast plus nutrients or would they rather just not bother with you?
> ...
> I am always interested in what homewinemakers do with unual fruit from other countries, what have you guys got down there that most of the world typically doesnt get to taste? WVMJ



Wine making is big in the Western Cape province, I'm 1200km North from there in Gauteng. As a tourist, the local wineries love and encourage visits. I havent been down to the Cape since I have started brewing, so I am uncertain of their reaction to me as a homewinemaker. It's definately something I will try. 

That being said, bottles and corks are not an issue, as Gauteng is the industrial hub of South Africa, it's really just a question of the yeast. That concept of growing my own yeast intrigues me. Possibly as this new hobby of mine picks up steam and I'm making a batch or two a week, that would definately be something to look into.

As far as fruit we have that is not common elsewhere? Uhm... I really am not sure. I am not as well travelled as I would like, so dont know what is common elsewhere. I just know that our fruit market exports all over the world. Possibly the naartjie fruit is South African... that name is too Afrikaans to come from elsewhere. Or maybe it just has another name in other countries?


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## Downwards

YourCaptain said:


> Possibly the naartjie fruit is South African... that name is too Afrikaans to come from elsewhere. Or maybe it just has another name in other countries?



Yep, we have them. If my googling hasn't failed me, we call them satsuma mandarin oranges here. Very tasty fruit for sure.


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## dessertmaker

I distinctly remember one of my college history professors talking about honey and fermentation residues being sampled off of vessels from the culture that evolved into the culture that had their butts kicked by the Vikings. 

You see how much I paid attention right? LoL! 

He referenced a book called "cups that cheered" which extensively discussed the history of alcohol in prehistoric Europe. I was actually interested in that part but couldn't find it.

Honey and fermentation residues sounds like mead to me. Maybe no "exact recipes" but saying theres no evidence that Vikings drank what we know as mead isn't true.

At least as far as my prof was concerned anyways.


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## fatbloke

dessertmaker said:


> I distinctly remember one of my college history professors talking about honey and fermentation residues being sampled off of vessels from the culture that evolved into the culture that had their butts kicked by the Vikings.
> 
> You see how much I paid attention right? LoL!
> 
> He referenced a book called "cups that cheered" which extensively discussed the history of alcohol in prehistoric Europe. I was actually interested in that part but couldn't find it.
> 
> Honey and fermentation residues sounds like mead to me. Maybe no "exact recipes" but saying theres no evidence that Vikings drank what we know as mead isn't true.
> 
> At least as far as my prof was concerned anyways.


There is plenty of evidence of Nordic and Germanic peoples drinking something that might approximate what we understand as a mead. Yet because they weren't big with written records (unlike the Romans before and Normans after), there's little proof/evidence of what went in these drinks or how they were made. The small amount of knowledge is mainly scientific/archaeological but that doesn't help much for those seeking authenticity.

Hence generally we use modern winemaking technique/method and adjust it to cater for the difficulties of honey musts.

Hell even the idea of drinking horns is questionable. More likely clay or wood vessels.

Hollywood has a lot to answer for.....


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## fatbloke

YourCaptain said:


> Let me start by saying that although South Africa has a HUGE commercial wine industry, and a developing craft beer market, home wine making is almost unheard of. Equipment is not the easiest to get hold of, and when you can, the price is quite hefty. A silly example - it was cheaper for me to buy fermentation locks online in the USA and have them shipped to South Africa, than buy them at my local homebrew shop. There are no wine kits available, unless I have COMPLETELY missed them on google. To top it all off, we dont have the huge variety of yeast that I hear you guys speak about. That being said, when it comes to the fresh ingredients, fruit and honey etc - we have more than enough at reasonable prices. The honey I got came from a local honey farmer, fresh (was harvested in the previous week), completely unprocessed. It was honey from the bluegum tree (not sure if that is only a local tree come to think of it??) and tasted great.
> 
> As I said, next time I'll try not heating it up. Although I must mention that I used the pot to heat the fruit and spices, and then just added the honey and water to mix in there. I didnt have it on the heat for longer than 5 min (except of course the bochet which was heated for an hour) so hopefully I didnt loose too much.
> 
> I was warned about honey giving problems, and was advised to add Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) to assist in the fermentation process. Hopefully this helps.
> 
> Promise everyone recipes are on there way soon


Sure I was aware of the commercial winemaking in SA, but was thinking more of how it transposed to home/amatuer wine making. Commercial supplies here seem very separate from the resurgent home brew market. Hell even finding commercial suppliers isn't so easy, yet home brew places are reasonably commonplace.

Some of the materials you read of are available or maybe just an equivalent. The "bigger" names aren't always so easy.

DAP is a good source of inorganic nitrogen, but if you look up what's used in "combined" nutrient, it's the micro elements that are missing from pure DAP. Hence boiled bread yeast, a handful of raisins often work fine. You can even use Marmite in small quantities (it contains too much salt for more that about a teaspoonful) if its available locally.

Yeasts ? I can get the usual suspects from Lalvin but anything else, other than locally packed stuff (with its corresponding limited data/information), so for anything else needs mail ordering........


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## YourCaptain

Here are the original recipies, I'll post my altered recipe later.

Viking Mead Recipe

The original as found at http://nvg.org.au/documents/other/vikingrecipes.pdf
Mead (Honey Wine)
- 5 gallon recipe
8-10 lbs pure raw honey (for light, delicate Mead)
(or) 12-13 " " " " (for medium sweet Mead)
(or) 15-16 " " " " (for very sweet or alcoholic Mead)
4-5 gallons purified spring water (not distilled)
3 tsp. yeast nutrient (or 5 tablets)
1 tsp. acid blend (combination malic/citric acid)
5-7 oz. sliced fresh ginger root (1 finger's length)
1/4 tsp. fresh rosemary (optional, as desired)
5-6 whole cloves (optional, as desired)
1-2 vanilla beans (optional, as desired)
cinnamon/nutmeg (optional, as desired)
lime/orange peels (optional, as desired)
crushed fruit (peaches, strawberries, grapes, etc.)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (to clarify Mead)
1/2 tsp. clear gelatin (to clarify Mead)
1 spotted newt's tail (optional, as desired 
1 packet yeast (champagne or ale yeast)
Heat spring water 10-15 minutes till boiling. Stir in honey, yeast nutrients, acid blend, and
spices (rosemary, ginger, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, lemon peel).
Boil for another 10- 15 minutes, (overcooking removes too much honey flavor), skimming off
foam as needed (2 to 3 times during last 15 minutes). After 15 minutes, add Irish Moss or
clear gelatin to clarify.
After last skimming, turn off heat, add crushed fruit, and let steep 15-30 minutes while
allowing mead to cool and clarify. After mead begins to clear, strain off fruit with hand
skimmer and pour mead through strainer funnel into 5 gallon glass carboy jug.
Let cool to room temperature about 24 hours.
After 24 hours, warm up 1 cup of mead in microwave, stir in 1 packet "Red Star" Champagne,
Montrechet, or Epernet yeast (or Ale yeast in order to make mead ale), and let sit for 5-15
minutes to allow yeast to begin to work.
Add this mead/yeast mixture to carboy jug and swirl around to aerate, thereby adding oxygen
to mead/yeast mixture.
Place run-off tube in stopper of bottle, with other end of tube in large bowl or bottle to capture
"blow-off" froth. Let mead sit undisturbed 7 days in cool, dark area. After initial violent
fermenting slows down and mead begins to settle, rack off (siphon off) good mead into clean
sterilized jug, leaving all sediment in bottom of first jug. Attach airlock to this secondary
carboy.
After 4-6 months, mead will clear. During this time, if more sediment forms on
bottom, good mead can be racked off again to another clean sterilized jug.
When bottling, in order to add carbonation, add either 1/4 tsp. white table sugar per 12 oz
bottle, or stir in 1/2 to 1 lb raw honey per 5 gallons mead (by first dissolving honey with a
small amount of mead or pure water in microwave).


Celtic Druid Honey Mead 
Original Recipe - http://www.food.com/recipe/celtic-druids-honey-mead-meade-metheglin-216215

2 ounces gingerroot 
2 lemons, juice and rind of, thinly pared peel 
6 whole cloves 
1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces 
8 pints water 
3 lbs flower honey or 3 lbs light honey 
1 ounce mead, wine or 1 ounce baker's yeast 
Directions:
1EQUIPEMENT:.
2Very large Pan - to hold 12 pints; Thermometer; 8 pint Fermentation Jar; Airlock; Bottles.
3Bruise the ginger by folding it in to a clean cloth and hitting it with a hammer to release its flavour.
4Tie the bruised ginger, cloves, cinnamon stick and the lemon peel in a muslin cloth and put it into a 12-pint pan.
5Add the water and lemon juice and bring it to the boil.
6Allow to cool to 50C/122°F.
7Meanwhile, stand the honey in a warm place and allow to come to the same temperature.
8Add the honey to the lemon and ginger water and mix.
9Allow to cool to 21C/70F and then remove the muslin bag with the ginger and lemon peel in it.
10Crumble the yeast into the honey water and mix lightly.
11Pour the liquid into an 8-pint fermentation jar, it should reach about three quarters full, and fit the airlock.
12Leave until all fermentation has finished, racking if necessary.
13Leave for another 1-2 weeks before bottling and storing.
14The mead can be drunk after 4-6 months, but is best if kept for several years!


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## YourCaptain

Personally, I couldnt obtain a spotted newt's tail for the viking mead. 

Maybe they are more common where ever you are in the world - try it and tell me what it did to the flavor.


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## dessertmaker

Ah HA! I have found the historical misinformation! They didn't have PACKETS of yeast back then! You all were right. It's a fake.


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## YourCaptain

dessertmaker said:


> Ah HA! I have found the historical misinformation! They didn't have PACKETS of yeast back then! You all were right. It's a fake.



It was right in front of my eyes! You are a genius I tell you!


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## Downwards

dessertmaker said:


> Ah HA! I have found the historical misinformation! They didn't have PACKETS of yeast back then! You all were right. It's a fake.





It's not that somebody did or didn't historically drink mead, it's just that we don't know their recipes, lol. They didn't have lots that we have besides cultured yeasts- including carboys that seal out bacteria, airlocks, bottles, corks, any of the chemicals we use, honey that was separated well from the rest of the hive, and many other things. It's also not very likely that we know what their tastes were, and when you consider all the fruits grains and adjuncts that are available to the modern maker, remember that many of the herbs and flavorings that they would have likely used some aren't known to us. 

Just as an example here's what wine (and area much more well researched) was like in the middle ages- 

"Because casks and barrels were exposed to the elements outdoors, the wines in them frequently became infected with bacteria. To avoid this, vintners rushed their new wines to market. These had dead yeasts floating in the liquid, so were cloudy... men and women tended to drink from metal cups or beakers, not glasses, so how a wine looked was irrelevant.. freshly fermented wine, hazy and perhaps still fizzy, was just about the only wine that did not taste unpleasantly shrill. Everyone knew that spring wine, sometimes called rec or reck owing to its having been racked from the dead yeast or lees, simply did not taste as good. Then came summer, when that same wine almost always had just about turned into vinegar... Given how rapidly wine's flavors degenerated with the seasons, it is not surprising that (they) celebrated the harvests... with festivals. 
As bad as barrel stored wine surely was, plenty of medieval wine must have tasted even worse. Following fermentation, a great deal of it... never saw a cask or barrel. It was stored in animal hides. These imparted flavors of their own, which, would seem extremely undesirable to our tastes. Moreover since the hides were dirty, they would infect the wine with bacteria. 
As in earlier epochs medieval wine was diluted with water. Since people drank it all day long, this was done as much with the goal of sanitizing the water as doing anything to improve the wine... Many poor people did not even have wine. They instead had to make do with piquette, a thin, acerbic drink made by adding water to pomace- the mass of skins, stems, seeds and pulp.."

"The abundance of bad wine explains why so much commentary concerned efforts to prevent it from souring or, if it already turned, to restore it... They employed all sorts of methods to preserve it, including adding burnt salt, boiled wheat, eggshells, cardamom, holly leaves, sand, or lead to casks and hides. One solution was to plunge a torch dipped in pitch into the cask, another was to boil the wine, atill another to expose it to frost. Here is a Parisian "cure" for cloudy and vinegary wine: 'Take a dishful of wheat, soak it in water, throw away the water, boil it in other water until it is just ready to burst, and remove it. If there are grains that have burst, toss them out, and throw the rest hot into the cask. If the wine doesn't come clear with this, take a basketful of sand well washed in the Seine and throw it into the cask.' "

"... a great deal of the medieval wine must have been terrible. Not surprisingly, the ancient practice of adding flavorings remained quite common. Wines were adulterated with honey, herbs, spices, and other aromatics- all in an effort to make them more palatable... But when beer and wine started to go bad, people simply poured in more flavorings. In fact, they added cinnamon, garlic, ginger, mustard, nutmeg, and more to all their different drinks. They also cometimes combined them. Bochet, a French concoction, blended beer, honey, various spices, wine and water. Its English equivalent, called a bracket, included a good deal of pepper, and Anglo-Saxon oxymel was made by combining vinegar and honey. Even mead, fermented honey and water, was often adulterated through the addition of herbs and spices." (Quotes from Inventing Wine by Paul Lukacs- very enjoyable and enlightening read..)

SOOOOOO.. If you mean that they had a beverage that was technically a mead, I don't think anyone at all disputes that with you. The point is that you likely wouldn't WANT to recreate what they made even if you DID have their recipe. There is just is probably no way to overstate how much this is the case, lol.


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## dessertmaker

o..O

You mean you don't drink your wines out of animal skin...?

I KNEW I wasn't doing something right. Oh well, guess ill have to find another use for all those pesky stray cats running around the neighborhood...

And I was SO enjoying the catnip aroma.....

Is this what my wife meant when she said too much body in my wine?

SEE PEOPLE? That's what this forum is FOR! You LEARN from these guys. I'm taking notes on this one.

Notes: .....no more kitty mead....


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## Downwards

You got me thinking catnip metheglin now. Hmmmm..

Edit: just googled it, it's actually been done. Getting hard to think of anything new!


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## YourCaptain

Downwards said:


> You got me thinking catnip metheglin now. Hmmmm..
> 
> Edit: just googled it, it's actually been done. Getting hard to think of anything new!



Who and why?! I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.


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## Downwards

Short thread here, but check it out.. Description sounds interesting. http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30141


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## Swediepie

Just stopping in to say that your kitchen (after the honey explosion) looks like my kitchen every day. I can only blame mine on three sloppy kids and a dog, though. 

Great photos and tips. I would love to try a vanilla mead and I have it on my to-do list!


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## the_rayway

Just reading the title of this thread made me thirsty.

Looks like you've got some interesting and (hopefully) yummy batches going over there - good luck and keep us posted!


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