MEAD.
Nature--Method of Manufacture--Metheglin and Mead--Estimation in
former times--Queen Elizabeth's Recipe--Scandinavian liking for
Mead.
The sugar of various vegetables is susceptible of alcoholic
fermentation; so from the sugar of malt we get beer, from that of the
grape, wine. Honey is, as we have said, a substance containing sugar,
which may also be made to yield a vinous liquor. Usually only the
washings of drained combs are used up for the manufacture of mead. The
saccharine extract is skimmed, strained, and boiled. Then a certain
proportion of raisins is added, together with a little ground ginger,
and a few bay or laurel leaves for flavouring. A small quantity of
brewer's yeast sets up the necessary fermentation, and after the liquor
has been put into a barrel, and allowed to "work" for two or three
days, it is bunged up, and at the end of six months may be bottled,
and soon afterwards will be fit for use. Of course, run honey may be
used for the purpose, but its employment is a more expensive mode of
manufacture.
Properly speaking, the word "metheglin" was applied to the superior
sorts of mead, the two beverages being related much in the same way as
effervescing bottled cider and the ordinary draught cider.
Mead-making seems anciently to have been considered a matter of great
interest and importance, and we are told by old authors that the Court
brewer of this beverage for Princes of Wales was the physician of
the household, and ranked eleventh in point of dignity. Æthelstan,
King of Kent in the tenth century, on paying a visit to his relative
Æthelfleda, expressed his satisfaction that there was no stint of mead.
According to an antique rule of the Welsh Court, there were "three
things which must be communicated to the king before they were imparted
to any other person. First, every sentence of the judge; second, every
new song; and third, every cask of mead."
Queen Elizabeth was so fond of this beverage as to have it made
regularly every year; and her recipe has been preserved to our own day.
It may interest our readers to give it entire: "Take of sweetbriar
leaves and thyme each one bushel, rosemary half a bushel, bay leaves
one peck. Seethe these ingredients in a furnace full of water
[containing probably not less than 120 gallons], boil for half an hour;
pour the whole into a vat, and when cooled to a proper temperature
[about 75° Fahr.], strain. Add to every six gallons of the strained
liquor a gallon of fine honey, and work the mixture together for half
an hour. Repeat the stirring occasionally for two days; then boil the
liquor afresh, skim it till it becomes clear, and return it to the
vat to cool. When reduced again to a proper temperature [about 80°
Fahr.], pour it into a vessel from which fresh ale or beer has just
been emptied; let it work for three days, and then barrel it. When fit
[after fermentation] to be stopped down, tie up a bag of beaten cloves
and mace [half an ounce of each], and suspend it in the liquor from the
bung-hole. When it has stood for half a year, it will be fit for use."
Mead remained in favour long after the introduction of malt liquors,
and the northern inhabitants of Europe drank it habitually till
comparatively modern times. Even so late as Dryden's day, it would
appear to have been in much more common use than now: for he says of
its employment for tempering strong wines:--
"T'allay the strength and hardness of the wine,
Let with old Bacchus new metheglin join."
It was probably the liquor called by Ossian the joy and strength of
skulls, and which so much delighted his heroes. It was the ideal
nectar of the Scandinavian nations, which they expected to drink in
heaven, using the skulls of their enemies for goblets, while they were
to regale themselves also on boars' flesh. So we read in Penrose's
_Carousal of Odin_:--
"Fill the honeyed beverage high,
Fill the skulls, 'tis Odin's cry!
Heard ye not the powerful call,
Thundering through the vaulted hall?
Fill the meath, and spread the board,
Vassals of the grisly lord!
The feast begins, the skull goes round,
Laughter shouts the shouts resound."
A quantity of mead sufficient for the very mundane tastes of these
celestial heroes was supposed to be daily supplied by a goat, called
Heidruna, of whom Cottle says:--
"Whose spacious horn would fill the bowl
That raised to rapture Odin's soul;
And ever drinking--ever dry--
Still the copious stream supply."