To every quart of Honey, take four quarts of water. Put your
water in a clean Kettle over the fire, and with a stick take
the just measure, how high the water cometh, making a notch,
where the superficies toucheth the stick. As soon as the water
is warm, put in your Honey, and let it boil, skiming it always,
till it be very clean; Then put to every Gallon of water, one
pound of the best Blew-raisins of the Sun, first clean picked
from the stalks, and clean washed. Let them remain in the
boiling Liquor, till they be throughly swollen and soft; Then
take them out, and put them into a Hair-bag, and strain all
the juice and pulp and substance from them in an Apothecaries
Press; which put back into your liquor, and let it boil, till
it be consumed just to the notch you took at first, for the
measure of your water alone. Then let your Liquor run through
a Hair-strainer into an empty Woodden-fat, which must stand
endwise, with the head of the upper-end out; and there let it
remain till the next day, that the liquor be quite cold. Then
Tun it up into a good Barrel, not filled quite full, and let
the bung remain open for six weeks. Then stop it up close, and
drink not of it till after nine months.
This Meathe is singularly good for a Consumption, Stone,
Gravel, Weak-sight, and many more things. A Chief Burgomaster
of Antwerpe, used for many years to drink no other drink but
this; at Meals and all times, even for pledging of healths.
And though He were an old man he was of an extraordinary vigor
every way, and had every year a Child, had always a great
appetite and good digestion; and yet was not fat.
One of good Sir Kenelm’s most famous instructions, which has become
fairly well-known, does honour not only to his delicate taste but also
to his religious devotion. It is his advice on the brewing of tea--“The
water is to remain upon it no longer than whiles you can say the
_Miserere_ Psalm very leisurely.” This advice occurs in the recipe