spiced-wine-msg - 9/17/12

Spiced wines. Hippocras. Period and SCA usage. Recipes.

NOTE: See also the files: wine-msg, wine-cooking-msg, wassail-msg, mead-msg, beer-msg, brewing-msg, beverages-msg, beverages-NA-msg, cider-msg.

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From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman)
Date: 19 Sep 91 02:51:06 GMT
Organization: University of Chicago

"Does anyone have recipies for mulled wine?  An easy to find
reference would be just as appreciated." (Andrew Salamon)

Hippocras is a hot spiced wine. The original for the recipe we use is
in Le Menagier de Paris (c. 1390); both it and our worked out version
are in the Miscellany. If people are interested I can post it.

Cariadoc

From: dolata at lead.uazaic.arizona.edu (Dolata)
Date: 27 Sep 91 17:54:43 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona AI Chemistry Lab, Tucson, AZ

Unto the Rialto doth Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus send his wishes
for health unto one and all...

MiLady,   Your recipie is almost exactly the one I have for Glogg,
a Swedish mulled wine.  (Rutiga Kokboken, ICA Bokforlag Vasteras,
1984)   The one addition the modern Swedes make is to add raisins
while it is cooking.   The raisins swell up and become very potent.
When serving you must make sure you put some in each cup.  They fish them 
out of the bottom of their cups with spoons,  drain them against the side 
of the cups,  and scoop them onto spicey gingerbread cookies and
eat them like little open faced sandwhiches!  Yummm!!!

However,  modern Glogg and mulled wine recipies are very expensive for 
our times.  Oranges and cloves are very exotic.   Cinnamon and ginger
are also exotic (and thus expensive), but they can be dried and made
mostly imperishable during transport, and only comes from
central Africa.  A more period recipe is from Food and Cooking in
Medieval Britain - History and Recipes,  by Maggie Black, English
Heritage Society, 1985.

1 1/5 pint white wine
1/2 pint water
8 oz ground almonds
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Ipocras can be drunk warm or cold.   The following recipie comes from
The Accomplisht Cook by Robert May, N. Brooke, London, 1660

Take a gallon of wine, three ounces of cinamon, two ounces of ginger, a quarter
of an ounce of cloves, an ounce of mace, twenty corns of pepper, an ounce
of nutmegs, three pounds of sugar, and two quarts of cream.

Personally,  I would cut down on the amount of mace to about 1/4 ounce!!!

The following is my adaptation of a recipie found in Dining with William
Shakespeare, Madge Lorwin, Atheneum, New York, 1976.

A gallon of claret
4 large pears
12 cloves
3 3" sticks of cinammon
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup raisins

Stew for at least 1 hour.   Take out the pears, mash them through a
strainer, and return to the wine.  Stir up and serve.

Of course,  you shouldn't ignore possets,  which are hot eggnogs.

Yours in service,

Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus
Minister of Arts and Sciences
College of St. Felix

From: cds at unisoft.UUCP (Chris Seabrook)
Date: 27 Sep 91 15:03:22 GMT
Organization: Open Systems Solutions, Inc. -- UNIX R Us.

        Mulled wine is a good and noble thing ! It takes a lot to beat a pot
mulling in the side of the fire on a cold evening (which we don't seem to get
enough of here in the West!). Our recipe has evolved into

        Red Wine (the cheap stuff) -  about 3/4 of the volume
        Port (also the cheap stuff) -  the other 1/4 of the volume
        Whole allspice - a small handfull
        Whole cloves - a small handfull
        Stick Cinamon - one (or two if it seems like a good idea) stick(s)
        One Orange (cut into small pieces)
        One Lemon (cut into small pieces)
        Sugar to taste (usually 2-3 desertspoons per small saucepan)

        As you may gather from the quantities listed, I tend to the 'add as
much as seems a good idea at the time' school of cooking ! The port adds some
body to the mull without too much additional alcohol if you keep the pot hot
and the citrus fruits give it a little bite. I've noticed that most people
around here prefer sweeter mulled wine, if I make a batch which is less than
successful it has always been fixable with more sugar.

Happy mulling

Garath Ivinghoe
-- 
Chris Seabrook          Engineering Development Mgr     cds at unisoft.com
Open Systems Solutions Inc                              +1 415 652 6200 x118
6121 Hollis St.
Emeryville CA 94608                                     +1 415 420 6499 (fax)

From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman)
Date: 28 Sep 91 02:51:47 GMT
Organization: University of Chicago

A number of people have given modern mulled wine recipes (including
one using allspice, which is native to the new world). Thomas
Ignatius Perigrinus gives a seventeenth century recipe for Hippocras
plus another that is undated. Here is a fourteenth century one.

          Hippocras
      Goodman p. 299/28

To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon
selected by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon,
an ounce of selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of
grain of Paradise, a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and
bray them all together.  And when you would make your hippocras, take
a good half ounce of this powder and two quarters of sugar and mix
them with a quart of wine, by Paris measure.  And note that the
powder and the sugar mixed together is the Duke's powder.

(this is the end of the period recipe; the rest is how we do it)

4 oz stick cinnamon     1 oz of ginger
2 oz powdered cinnamon  1 oz of grains of paradise
RA sixthS (probably of a poundQ2 2/3 ounces) of nutmegs and galingale
together

Grind them all together. To make hippocras add 1/2 ounce of the
powder and 1/2 lb (1 cup) of sugar to a quart of boiling wine. Strain
through a sleeve of Hippocrates (a tube of cloth, closed at one end).
We generally use somewhat less of both sugar and powder than the
recipe calls for.

Cariadoc

From: sbloch at euler.ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)
Date: 28 Sep 91 18:15:50 GMT

dolata at lead.uazaic.arizona.edu (Thomas Ignatius Peregrinus) writeth:
>However,  modern Glogg and mulled wine recipies are very expensive for 
>our times.  Oranges and cloves are very exotic.   Cinnamon and ginger
>are also exotic (and thus expensive), but they can be dried and made
>mostly imperishable during transport...

Oranges are only exotic if you live in the lands of the barbarous
Franks; in al-Andalus they're nothing special.  And what's this about
cloves, which appear in (off the top of my head) perhaps 10% of all
surviving early English recipes?  Right next to ginger, say 20%, and
cinnamon, about 30%?

(The numbers are completely unsubstantiated.  Anyway, cinnamon,
ginger, and cloves, in that order, are QUITE common in early English
cookbooks.)

-- 
Stephen Bloch
mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
>sca>Caid>Calafia>St.Artemas
sbloch at math.ucsd.edu

From: dolata at lead.uazaic.arizona.edu (Dolata)
Date: 29 Sep 91 02:43:49 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona AI Chemistry Lab, Tucson, AZ

Unto mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib doth Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus send
his greetings;

May those who praise your wisdom and strength number as the grains of sand
in the deserts of all the world;

You are right in all aspects,  and I thank you for reminding me that there
is more to the world than my humble English garden.  Yet,  if I may be
so bold,  may I make a rejoinder or two, if it pleases your Lordship?

>Oranges are only exotic if you live in the lands of the barbarous
>Franks; in al-Andalus they're nothing special.

Ahhh,  but doesn't your holy Book forbid thee alcohol, and thus isn't the 
call for mulled wines somewhat limited to the lands of the Glorius Franks?

> Anyway, cinnamon,
>ginger, and cloves, in that order, are QUITE common in early English
>cookbooks.

True My Lord...  but the cookbooks are written by the stewards of 
the Lords and Ladies of great houses, and as a humble Clerk I could
occasionally afford such delights,  but often make do with more homely 
recipies.   Besides, My Lord, I thought that others may find some delight 
in the less common recipies.

I hope I have explained to some degree my seeming errors,  and I remain,

Yours in Service

Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus
Minister of Arts and Sciences
College of St. felix

From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: How sweet were medieval wines?
Date: 24 Jun 93 02:41:24 GMT
Organization: The Rialto

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.  David Tallan also says,

>                                          Now if only I could find the
>source of this idea I haver that medieval wines tended to be sweeter
>than modern wines...

Well, I don't know whether they started that way, but they were certainly
often consumed that way.  Once uppon a time, I thought that the clarre
(clarey, clare) that recipes referred to was just a variety of wine, 
possibly our claret.  Not a chance, kids.  It's spiced wine with honey
-- by recipe 205 in Hieatt's edition of Forme of Cury, two parts wine
to one part honey!  That, lords and ladies, is sweeter than any wine
_I've_ ever had.  The recipe from Royal 17 A iii that she reproduces
as # 4 of Goud Kokery is far less sweet, but still three gallons of honey
for a total of 20 gallons of clarre, or one to slightly less than six.
The following recipe for a pipe of clarre calls for six gallons of honey;
someone who knows how much a pipe is may be able to say what the proportions
are.

Hipocras is also a spiced, sweet wine, but usually sweetened with sugar,
not honey.

Also, John Russell's Boke of Nurture goes through the lists of wines he
found important.  It lists three classes: red, white, and sweet.  Red and
white wines receive no further discussion.  He has a separate verse,
however, dedicated to naming the sweet wines -- vernage, vernagelle, wyne
cute, pyment raspise, muscadelle, rompney, bastard, tyre, ozey (that's
a yogh, not a z; I don't know how it is spelled in modern terms), torrentyne,
wine greke, malevesyn, caprik, and clarre.  That's twelve sweet wines,
to one word each to classify red and white.  And then he spends several
pages on hipocras.

This matches my experience with recipes, which specify (when they don't
say simply "wine") red, white, or vernage, or wine greke, or clarre -- three
sweets, distinguished, but no distinctions among reds and whites.

I'd say this supports is the view that sweet wines were more salient
to medievals than they are now.  How sweet the wines themselves were -- I
haven't seen anywhere near enough information on their making and the other
things one would have to know to find out, given that we can't simply
taste them....

BTW: has anyone tried the 14th C recipes for mead (or for aqua vite) from
this same collection?  Any luck with them?

Cheers,

-- Angharad/Terry

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman)
Subject: Re: Ipocras Documentation
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 06:41:41 GMT

Bridgette asks for a primary source for Hippocras. The earliest
Hippocras recipe I know of (and the one I use) is in _Le Mangier de
Paris_. Last decade of the 14th century.

David/Cariadoc

From: greg at bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Greg Rose)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Ipocras Documentation
Date: 21 Nov 1994 02:22:04 -0500
Organization: Guest of MIT AI and LCS labs

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Bridgette Kelly MacLean asks,

>	I have a question for the vintners and brewers among us...
>	Do you have any primary resource for the drink Ipocras... 
>	It is a form of spiced wine and my secondary resource dates it
>	as 1621,  but I would like a primary source... 

There is a recipe for Ypocras (#143) in Forme of Curye, and another for 
Potus ypocras in Goud Kokery, both available in Constance Hieatt and Sharon 
Butler, _Cury on Inglysch_. FoC is probably the best known English MS
before Digby; GK is actually selections from a number of miscellaneous
MSs, collated by Hieatt and Butler (the hippocras recipe is #5 in that
collection).  FoC is dated about 1390; the MS from which the other recipe
comes is about a decade older.

Hope this helps.
Cheers,

-- Angharad

From: vandy.simpson at ambassador.com (Vandy Simpson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: re:Ipocras Documentation
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 21:26:00 GMT
Organization: AMBASSADOR BOARD (519) 925-2642 V.32

With regards to my Lady Bridgette Kelly Maclean's request for
documentation on Ipocras, I have rootled out a few earlier mentions of
it.There are recipes in both Menagier de Paris (1393) and in The Forme
of Cury (1390).These seem to be the earliest references I can find with
only minimal scrounging through my dis-jointed library.As I find more
I'll pass them along.If you want the actual recipes, feel free to mail
me directly.
 Mistress Mortraeth Colwyn
 vandy.simpson at ambassador.com

From: vandy.simpson at ambassador.com (Vandy Simpson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: re:Ipocras
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 03:52:00 GMT
Organization: AMBASSADOR BOARD (519) 925-2642 V.32

good day, again. a couple more references have surfaced.Apecius has a
recipe for a spiced wine, that's first century.And in Fabulous Feasts
by Madelaine Pelner Cosman, on the subject of ypocras, she quotes John
Russell's BOKE OF NURTURE, whichdates from 1460-1470.
 Again, if you want any further details of what I have here, just mail
me:
 Mistress Mortraeth Colwyn
 vandy.simpson at ambassador.com

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: ddfr at quads.uchicago.edu (david director friedman)
Subject: Re: Ipocras Documentation
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 06:41:41 GMT

Bridgette asks for a primary source for Hippocras. The earliest
Hippocras recipe I know of (and the one I use) is in _Le Mangier de
Paris_. Last decade of the 14th century.

David/Cariadoc

From: greg at bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Greg Rose)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Ipocras Documentation
Date: 21 Nov 1994 02:22:04 -0500
Organization: Guest of MIT AI and LCS labs

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Bridgette Kelly MacLean asks,

>	I have a question for the vintners and brewers among us...
>	Do you have any primary resource for the drink Ipocras... 
>	It is a form of spiced wine and my secondary resource dates it
>	as 1621,  but I would like a primary source... 

There is a recipe for Ypocras (#143) in Forme of Curye, and another for 
Potus ypocras in Goud Kokery, both available in Constance Hieatt and Sharon 
Butler, _Cury on Inglysch_. FoC is probably the best known English MS
before Digby; GK is actually selections from a number of miscellaneous
MSs, collated by Hieatt and Butler (the hippocras recipe is #5 in that
collection).  FoC is dated about 1390; the MS from which the other recipe
comes is about a decade older.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

-- Angharad

From: vandy.simpson at ambassador.com (Vandy Simpson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: re:Ipocras Documentation
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 21:26:00 GMT
Organization: AMBASSADOR BOARD (519) 925-2642 V.32

With regards to my Lady Bridgette Kelly Maclean's request for
documentation on Ipocras, I have rootled out a few earlier mentions of
it.There are recipes in both Menagier de Paris (1393) and in The Forme
of Cury (1390).These seem to be the earliest references I can find with
only minimal scrounging through my dis-jointed library.As I find more
I'll pass them along.If you want the actual recipes, feel free to mail
me directly.
 Mistress Mortraeth Colwyn
 vandy.simpson at ambassador.com

From: vandy.simpson at ambassador.com (Vandy Simpson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: re:Ipocras
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 03:52:00 GMT
Organization: AMBASSADOR BOARD (519) 925-2642 V.32

good day, again. a couple more references have surfaced. Apecius has a
recipe for a spiced wine, that's first century. And in Fabulous Feasts
by Madelaine Pelner Cosman, on the subject of ypocras, she quotes John
Russell's BOKE OF NURTURE, which dates from 1460-1470.
 Again, if you want any further details of what I have here, just mail
me:
 Mistress Mortraeth Colwyn
 vandy.simpson at ambassador.com

From: lila at lynx.CO.NZ (Lila Richards)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Mulled Wine Recipe.
Date: 12 Oct 1995 23:17:46 -0400
Organization: The Internet

Falcor wrote:
>I need assistance in obtaining a receipe for Mulled wine.  I prefer to 
>make my own, not buy the prepackaged stuff.

Here are some recipes I got from a book of 'traditional' (English) Christmas
recipes.  They are not period, but you didn't specify that that was what you
wanted, so ...

1. Gluhwein (for about 6 people). (No, not traditional English, but Austrian).

1 litre cheap red wine
3-4 oz (75-100g) sugar, to taste
1 teaspoon (5 ml) whole cloves
1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground cinnamon
juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon

Pour the wine into a saucepan.  Add the other ingredients, heat until nearly
boiling, then strain into a warmed bowl and serve.

2. Old-fashioned Mulled Wine (for about 6 people).

1 litre Spanish red wine (I've used local varieties instead, with good results)
10 fl oz (250 ml) ginger ale or cold strained tea
1 orange stuck with ten cloves
3 cinnamon sticks or 1 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp mixed spice
4 oz (100 g) brown sugar
large wineglass brandy or whisky or dark rum

Put all except spirits into a pan and heat thoroughly without boiling, for
about half an hour.  Before serving, add brandy, whisky or rum.

3. Cider Punch (for about 10 people).

l (2 pints) litre sweet cider
1 tsp each of ground cinnamon and mutmeg
juice of 1 lemon

Put all into a pan, bring to boil and simmer for about 5 minutes.  Serve
immediately.

4. A Wassail Cup (for about 10 people).

4 oz (100 g) sugar
3 cinnamon sticks or 2 tsp ground cinnamon
half pint (250 ml) orange juice
half pint orange juice
juice of 2-3 lemons
5 fl oz (125 ml) dry sherry
2 and a half to 3 pints (1.25-1.5 litres) ale
slices of lemon

Boil up sugar, cinnamon and fruit juice together for about 5 minutes.  Pour
the sherry and ale into a large pan and strain the fruit juice mixture into
it.  Heat but don't boil.  Garnish with slices of lemon and serve.

5. Non-alcoholic Punch

2 pints (1 litre) sugar syrup (625 ml (1 1/4 pints) water and 12 oz (300 g)
sugar)
2 pints water
1 pint orange juice
1/2 pint grapefruit juice
1 tsp each of ground ginger and cinnamon
8 cloves
mint and fruit to decorate, according to season

Boil sugar syrup, water and spices together for 5 minutes to extract
flavour.  Add orange and grapefruit juice and stir well.  Serve either hot
or chilled, decorated with mint and fruit, whatever is in season.

I have found a crock-pot useful for mulled wine, as it heats slowly, and can
keep the wine warm throughout the evening.  You can add more ingredients as
required, heat up, then place on low heat until the next 'round' is required.

If anyone has period recipes, I'd be interested to have them.

Caitlin ni Cumhaill.  
________________________________________________________________________________
Lila Richards, PO Box 13715, Christchurch, New Zealand.   Email: lila at lynx.co.nz

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 21:49:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Foods that I won't eat

At 11:11 AM +1000 6/29/97, KandL Johnston wrote:

>For me and old favorite is Mulled wine, which until a few years ago was
>a great favorite. That was until I found I was deathly allergic to Honey
>and in Medieval cooking That is a real bummer.
>--Nicolette--

I would have said that a majority of the surviving medieval recipes which
call for sweetener call for sugar rather than honey.  In particular, our
favorite mulled wine (hippocras) recipe uses sugar.

Hippocras (Menagier de Paris, late 14th c.)

To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon selected
by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon, an ounce of
selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of grain of Paradise,
a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and bray them all together. And
when you would make your hippocras, take a good half ounce of this powder
and two quarters of sugar and mix them with a quart of wine, by Paris
measure. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed together is the
Duke's powder. (end of original)

4 oz stick cinnamon
2 oz powdered cinnamon
1 oz of ginger
1 oz of grains of paradise
"A sixth" (probably of a pound:  2 2/3 oz) of nutmegs and galingale together

Grind them all together. To make hippocras add 1/2 ounce of the powder and
1/2 lb (1 cup) of sugar to 2 quarts of boiling wine (the quart used to
measure wine in Paris c. 1393 was about 2 modern U.S. quarts, the pound and
ounce about the same as ours). Strain through a sleeve of Hippocrates (a
tube of cloth, closed at one end).

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 17:39:08 +1100 (EST)
From: Charles McCathieNevile <charlesn at sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au>
Subject: Re: SC - Drink suggestions?

Claree (Spiced Wine)
take halrf measure cinnamon, ginger, mace, 1/3 measure cloves nutmeg,
malabathrum???; fennel anise, caraway seeds in the same amount (1/3?),
cardamon and squiant a fourth of a measure, and spikenard 1/2 of all others.

Grind into powder, put in a cloth pouch, pour wine through and wring out.
the more you pour through the stronger.

if you haven't everything, 2 measures cinnamon, mace, cloves ginger,
and spikenard 1/2 of all the others.

(two anglo-norman culinary collections. Speculum 61/4 (1986) p877. 13th C)

But I don't have a redaction for it, and the quantities may be wrong.
notes: squiant - a type of eastern grass - from the article.

Cheers
Charles

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 13:49:21 -0500
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: SC - hypocras

I made some hypocras about 2 weeks ago from Robert May's recipe in The
Accomplisht Cook.  (This is the 1st hypocras I've tried with cream.) When I
made it, it had the consistency of egg nog, very thick, as expected, & very
cloudy from the cream.  I didn't finish it, so I put the bottle in the
fridge & forgot about it.  I just looked at it now & it is totally clear --
not a trace of the cream is left, not even on the bottom of the bottle.
There's only a slight film of spice at the bottom.  The flavor is very much
improved, spicy with a rich creamy aftertaste, & very much more pleasant to
drink.

The original says nothing about aging the wine.  A recipe from Martha
Washington's CB says it may be kept a quarter of a year, but other recipes
seem to indicate serving immediately after straining out the spices.

I'm wondering if anyone else has tried this & had the same thing happen?
Also, what happened to the cream?

Cindy

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 20:56:54 -0500
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - hypocras

>recipe please, i don't have a copy......
>margali

TO MAKE IPOCRAS WITH RED WINE - 1660

Take a gallon of wine, three ounces of cinamon, two ounces of slic't
ginger, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, an ounce of mace, twenty corns of
pepper, an ounce of nutmegs, three pound of sugar, and two quarts of cream.
(From The Accomplisht Cook, by Robert May, 1660.

Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1999 10:59:37 -0800
From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: SC - hypocras

Elysant asks about hypocras/ipocras/hippocras...
and Cindy sez:
>Hello!  Yes, it's a beverage, a spiced wine drink reputed to give a man
>'corage'. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.  Generally, it was served at the end of
>a meal with wafers, & before the comfits.

My fave factoid is that you tended to buy the spice mixture at the
apothacary (we have mss illos showing the booth, with the sign "good
hippocras" hanging in front), but theres guarenteed to be a recipe for
making it "from scratch" in mostmedieval cookbooks.

Its said to be good for the digestion :). Interestingly, we have no
documentation that it was served hot like is done so often at SCA events.
go figure! I've seen one secondary source citing a Spanish recipe that is
served hot, but it appears to be medicinal, not after dinner. I'd love to
be corrected on this one, with someone finding a primary source for it
served hot (I love the stuff)...

- --Anne-Marie

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 19:48:20 -0500
From: "Daniel Phelps" <phelpsd at gate.net>
Subject: Re: SC - hypocras question

From: Terri Spencer <taracook at yahoo.com>:
>So, does anyone know what kind of wine would have been used for
>hypocras?  And the best modern equivalent?

While admittedly no wine expert, my readings suggest that the wine used was
what was generally available thus the wines used were probably nothing
special.  I suspect that until quite late in period that such wines would be
what we would consider rather rough unaged wines.

>From "Vintage the Story of Wine".  "Maturity was not a factor that the
medieval wine critics concerned themselves with, except as it affected the
drinker's comfort.  Drinking wine so new that it is still, in the French
phrase, "trouble" can lead to severe "collywobbles".  If it was older than a
year, the chances were that the wine was spoiled.  The choice was distinctly
limited."  page 127.  From the same source in 1302 Petrus de Crescentiis of
Bologna in his "Liber Commodorum Ruralium" said that the right age for wine
was neither new (first year) nor old, which according to the "Vintage's"
author suggests that he preferred one or two year old wine best.  The author
goes on to state that the majority of critics held that it was better simply
to wait until fermentation was over and drink up.  "The more northern (and
weaker) the wine the more important to drink it quickly."  Further reference
suggests Burgundy of high quality was drinkable at two years and according
to the author,  "The only known reference from the Middle Ages to any wine
being especially good at as old as four years was, remarkably enough, the
exceptional Chablis vintage of 1396."

The author says that according to the Catalan author Eiximenis "...the
French like white wines, Burgundians red, Germans aromatic, and the English
beer."

I suggest that you use what ever table wine, red or white,  you want as it
is probably at least as good as they would have used in period and probably
better.  Realizing that your average A/S judge would probably spit out a
"period" tasting wine as offensive to his modern palate, I would just chose
a wine that tasted good to you to as my base to start.

As a side note the use of sulfur was permitted in wine in Germany by royal
decree in 1487.  If you want to go to the trouble you can find "organic"
wines in which no sulfides or "additives" are used.

Such is, in my humble opinion, what I would suggest.  We will now see what
storms of controversy result.

Daniel Raoul le Vascon du Navarre'
Shire of Sea March, Kingdom of Trimaris

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 22:21:57 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - hypocras question

And it came to pass on 21 Mar 99,, that Terri Spencer wrote:
> So, does anyone know what kind of wine would have been used for
> hypocras?  And the best modern equivalent?

> Tara

The Spanish recipes I know specify a mixture: half white, half red.
No further information is given on varieties of wine.

Brighid

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 22:25:57 -0600
From: Pug Bainter <pug at pug.net>
Subject: SC - Re: hypocras

renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) said something that sounded like:
> I made some hypocras about 2 weeks ago from Robert May's recipe in The
> Accomplisht Cook.  (This is the 1st hypocras I've tried with cream.)

So far we've only tried one with cream as well. We intentionally picked
it out because it had cream in it.

> I'm wondering if anyone else has tried this & had the same thing happen?

We didn't try the same exact recipe. We tried one of the Martha Washington
recipes. (#259 on p 239 of your book)

Our rendition of it was:

1 gallon of wine               1 pint of whole milk
2 lbs of granulated sugar      4 whole nutmegs
1/2 ounce ginger root          1/2 ounce coriander seeds
2 ounces of cinnamon sticks

Grate ginger. Break cinnamon pieces, corriander seeds and nutmeg with
pestel. Mix wine and spices and 1/2 sugar. Mix milk and other 1/2 sugar.
Combine mixtures and let sit for 24 hours. Filter into bottle.

We refridgerated it during the sitting and after filtering.

It was definately a lot better as a cold drink than a warm one.

Honestly, I think after trying hypocras with and without cream, I'll do
most of mine with. It's way yummy. *grin*

> Also, what happened to the cream?

If you shake it up, the creamy color comes back. It was the slight filmy
layer on the bottom of the bottle. It is much more impressive to get
that flavor without the cream color though.

As for the person who metioned not documenting the type of wine, my
personal feelings are that it only matters for reproduction of the
specific recipe. For an A&S competition, I wouldn't care unless I wanted
the recipe for myself.

Phelim "Pug" Gervase  | "I want to be called. COTTONTIPS. There is something
Barony of Bryn Gwlad  |  graceful about that lady. A young woman bursting with
House Flaming Dog     |  vigor. She blinked at the sudden light. She writes
pug at pug.net           |  beautiful poems. When ever shall we meet again?"

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 22:58:24 EDT
From: <CELIAME at aol.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: hippocras/ypocras

In a message dated 6/16/99 6:13:19 PM, lady_gawain at yahoo.com writes:
<< Hello.  I am looking for hippocras recipes (and
directions toward documentation).  I would like to
collect a few so that I can pick my favorite(s) :)
Thanks.
 >>

        There is a whole chapter on hypocras in a book I find very useful
called:  A Sip Through Time by Cindy Renfrew.  ISBN 0-9628598-3-4.  She also
wrote Take a Thousand Eggs or More.  I believe it is self published, because
there is no publisher marked on the book.
        She says that hypocras can be divided into 3 types: red wine and
spices; white wine and spices; and those that ask for milk or cream as well
as wine and spices. (p.235).  Basically what  all the recipes say is to crush
a number of spices together into a powder, mix it with sugar and put it into
wine.
        One recipe from 1375 (she quotes Le Viandier de Taillevent, c.1375)
calls for:

8 oz. sugar
1 qt. wine
1/2 oz. spice powder (cinnamon, Mecca ginger, nutmeg, grains of paradise,
cassia flower, and galingale)

        Another she thinks comes from 1450 (attributed to a manuscript
belonging to Thomas Astle, esq.) calls for red wine and two different spice
mixtures depending on class.
        For lords:  Ginger root, cinnamon sticks, grains of paradise, sugar,
and turnsole(this ingredient she warns may be any one of a few different
things, all of which are poisonous)
        For commoners:  Ginger root, cinnamon sticks, long pepper, and
clarified honey.

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 22:55:27 -0700
From: Leonard Baldt <baldt at televar.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: hippocras/hypocras

I have a wonderful recipe.  This can be made cold for summer or warmed
for winter  :-).  It's non-alcoholic and the kids really like it.
Summer Recipe:
1  12 oz can frozen white grape juice (mixed with water qty as
directed).
1  12 oz can frozen apple juice (mixed with water qty as directed).
1   lemon, sliced (optional)
Mix juices  & lemon in a large drink container and set in refrig.
In a small sauce pan, I heat & simmer for about 20?+ minutes:
1 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
1 tablespoon whole cloves - less if desired.
1 tablespoon peeled and grated ginger - more if desired.
After simmering desired time, strain and add liquid to fruit juice.
Stir and serve over ice.

Winter Recipe:
Use all of above ingredients and put into large pan warm/simmer on stove
- don't boil.
A half ingredient recipe can also be put into a crock pot.

Hope you like this one.
       Patty Baldt

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:41:31 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: SC - clary - was Stefan's recent wafer experiment

<snip>
>On a related note, I've recently been playing with Ms Add 32085 and see
>there's a clary recipe that is nearly identical to most of the hippocras
>recipes I've seen, except for the fact that it appears to lack sugar.
>For those who pay attention to this stuff, would they say that that
>would be a defining characteristic, that hippocras has sugar and clary
>doesn't? I think I haven't seen enough clary recipes yet.
>
>Adamantius

Would you please post this recipe? I'm collecting clary wine recipes. Of
the 4 I have, 3 use sugar & one uses raisins for sweetness.  Here is the
earliest one, all the others are OOP.

CLARY WINE - 1621 - (this recipe has a scribal error in the amount of sugar
called for)
Ten gallons of water, thirteen pounds of sugar to the gallon, and the
whites of sixteen eggs well beat.  Boil it slowly one hour and skim it
well.  Then put it into a tub till it is almost cold.  Take a pint of Clary
flowers with the small leaves and stalks, put them into a barrel with a
pint of ale yeast, then put in your liquor and stir it twice a day till it
has done working.  Make it up close and keep it four months, and then
bottle it off.
(From A Delightful Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlemen, by John
Murrell, 1621.)

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
renfrow at skylands.net

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 16:38:47 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Stefan's recent wafer experiment

At 1:29 AM -0500 9/29/99, Stefan li Rous wrote:
...
>So I've got a number of experiments I want to do. I think I'm going to
>be real tired of eating wafers though by the Oct. 24 event.
>
>I'm also planning on hypocras, a selection of dried fruit and comfits.
>Does anyone have any favorite hypocras recipes (I don't have any in the
>Florilegium).

Le Menagier de Paris has got some wafer recipes; I haven't worked with
them. (Cariadoc has Menagier webbed in English translation, I think someone
else has the French original webbed.) His cookbook is also the source for
our favorite hypocras recipe:

Hippocras

To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon selected
by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon, an ounce of
selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of grain of Paradise,
a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and bray them all together. And
when you would make your hippocras, take a good half ounce of this powder
and two quarters of sugar and mix them with a quart of wine, by Paris
measure. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed together is the
Duke's powder.

4 oz stick cinnamon
2 oz powdered cinnamon
1 oz of ginger
1 oz of grains of paradise
"A sixth" (probably of a pound:  2 2/3 oz) of nutmegs and galingale together

Grind them all together. To make hippocras add 1/2 ounce of the powder and
1/2 lb (1 cup) of sugar to 2 quarts of boiling wine (the quart used to
measure wine in Paris c. 1393 was about 2 modern U.S. quarts, the pound and
ounce about the same as ours). Strain through a sleeve of Hippocrates (a
tube of cloth, closed at one end).

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 10:37:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jeff B <marcocaprioli at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: SC - My first attempt at hyppocras
To: Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>

 Here's the rubric of a recipe I have written down (_very_ generic):

*Dissolve 1 1/2 lbs. sugar in 3/4 pint of water (in a pan)
*Add:
  4 tsp. ginger (ground)
  1/4 of a nutmeg, ground
  zest of 2 seville oranges
  1 Tbsp. cinnamon
*Boil this syrup for a couple of minutes and add 2 litres of old wine
(they specify "old" because you can really make wine that's on the
verge of going bad taste really good with this recipe)
*Heat this mixture gently till it starts to froth a little. Remove it
from the heat. 
*Wait half an hour and strain and bottle the stuff.

(it tastes best at or just below room temp. but never actually
chilled.)

NOW, for the good way to make it (mine):

use the same processes, different spicing, though 
ALSO NOTE THAT THIS RECIPE IS FOR 1 US GALLON (twice the amount of the
last recipe):

4 cups sugar, give or take according to taste
8 Tbsp ginger, pre-ground or half that amount if freshly 
  pounded and ground
circa 2 tsp. nutmeg or 1/2 of a nutmeg, freshly ground
half as much cinnamon as the total of all the other spices (ceylon 
  is best!)
a goodly plam of cubebs (tailed peppers), freshly ground
a palm of grains of paradise, freshly ground
a small palm full of whole black peppers (grind them on 
  the spot)
1 Tbsp. clove, freshly ground, or more, if it suits your tastes 
  (I like more)
a palm full of good peppermint (dried) or three goodly hands of
  fresh mint leaves
about 1 1/2 tsp. mace (omit if using freshly ground nutmeg)
3 Tbsp. ground corriander
a dash or two of salt
zest of four oranges, one lemon, and one lime.
the juice of aforesaid citrus.

other ideas for spices and herbs to add are things like galingale and
spykenard (I'd love to use them but haven't gotten my hands on them
yet), lavender flowers, catnip (don't laugh, it's good), and one of my
favorites, myrrh.

*Boil this syrup for a couple of minutes and add *1 US gallon* (or so)
of wine 
*Heat this mixture gently till it starts to froth a little. Remove it
from the heat. 
*Wait half an hour and strain and bottle the stuff.

do the boiling-thing with this and the sugar, let it cool and skim it
(the spices will make kind of a thick scum on the top that you can
spoon off)

after you've taken the big scum off the top, put in 3 or 4 drops of
ESSENTIAL rose oil or about a cup of really good rose water. Heat it up
a little, so that the oil mixes into the wine well, and cool it a
little more. It should be hotter than room temperature so that it goes
through the pantyhose better (that's what I strain with). The rule of
thumb for the rose is to smell it--if it smells like you'd want to put
it in your mouth and eat it, then it's good for you. If it doesn't
smell like you'd want to put it in your mouth, then don't. Find another
rose water or omit it.

In the straining process, you'll probably need to rinse the pantyhose
out really well, since the spices clog it pretty thouroughly, less so
if you grind them all on your own. If you let it sit overnight or for a
couple days, more sediment will come out of it--you may keep that
sediment in it for a heavier, spicy flavor or drain it off for a more
refined and slightly subtler taste. Also, if you're feeling lazy or in
a pinch for time, you can substitute the grated orange zest for half a
bottle of orange extract and then squeeze the two oranges, lemon, and
lime into the stuff without zesting them. The hippocras should have a
really nice orange-and spice flavor about it. The ginger, citrus, and
cinnamon predominate in my recipe. The rose really does add a sublime
topnote to the drink. 

Lastly, the amount of sugar listed above, 1 1/2 lbs, will make the
hippocras nearly syrupish, too sweet for some, but too plain for none.
You _can_ cut down on the sugar; I frequently cut it down by a fourth.
If you can't get your hands (which should be sticky by now from the
oranges and sugar) on some cubebs, you can use some allspice and a
whole lot more pepper, though it's never as good as with cubebs. If you
give it a try, let me know how it turns out. I've had the peers as well
as the crown of Artemisia groveling for my hippocras before, so I guess
that they do like it. 

I really couldn't cite anything other than good taste and Emma of
Hambledon's recipe as to a source for the oranges, though it does
indeed fit the idiom of 15th and 16th century spicing.

Marcello
=====
Marcello Caprioli                 Jeff Gdog Gdo
Shire of Stan Wyrm                Great Falls MT
Artemisia

Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2000 01:31:10 +0100
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: SC - Mulling spices

<< What spices, other than cloves and cinnamon, go in mulled wine? >>

The winebook of Arnald of Villanova mentions many wines prepared with
herbs and/or spices. A facsimile edition of the German translation
(1478) together with an English translation by H.E. Sigerist was
published in 1943 in New York ('The Earliest Printed Book on Wine by
Arnald of Villanova ..., New York 1943'). These are mainly medicinal
wines. A latin version is in 'Arnaldi Villanovani ... Opera omnia,
Basel: Konrad Waldkirch 1585, 581-602.

Such preparations were varied ad libitum, it seems. The 'Von Speisen.
Nat¸rlichen vnd Kreuter Wein/ aller verstandt' (1531) has a recipe for
"Gew¸rtzt wein" (spiced wine), where one could choose one or several
spice(s) ("WElcherlei w¸rtz du wilt", 'whatever spice(s) you like'),
that was/were used together with Galgant and sugar:

"Gew¸rtzt wein.
WElcherlei w¸rtz du wilt sto? gar wol/ vnnd etwan vil Galgant/ vnd als
vil zuckers des andern gew¸rtz allen/ thu:os zusamen inn ein reyn leinen
secklin/ geu? den wein darein/ Seihe es also drei oder viermal die
materi im secklin/ bi? der wein die gantze krafft der Specerei in sich
zeucht/ behalt vnd vermach jn darnach wol in eim fe?lin" (fol. XVIIIv).

Anybody working on Arnald of Villanova?

Cheers,
Thomas

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 21:06:18 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Mulling spices

I don't remember if I've posted the recipe for clarea here.  It's from de 
Nola (1529).  Here's the essence of it: to one "azumbre" (approx. 2 
liters) of white wine add one pound of honey and one ounce of a spice 
mix in the following proportions: 3 parts cinnamon, 2 parts cloves, 1 part 
ginger.  Mix well, strain through a sleeve enough times until the wine 
comes through clear.

The non-alcoholic version of clarea calls for one azumbre of water, 4 
ounces of honey, and the same spices.  Bring the water and honey to a 
boil, remove from heat; add spices and proceed as above.

Note: made with cassia, these proportions/quantities give the clarea an 
obnoxiously overwhelming cinnamon flavor.  I have not had a chance to 
try it with true cinnamon.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 19:19:32 GMT
From: "Bonne of Traquair" <oftraquair at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: SC - grapes

>this doesn't exactly answer your question, but ....
>If you have grape juice and want to cut the sweet, use lemon
>juice to taste.  I made "dry site hippocras".  the addition
>of the lemon juice helped a lot.

My dry site hippocras is a mixture of unsweetened unfiltered apple juice, 
unsweetened cranberry juice and sweetened white grape juice from concentrate 
with balsamic vinegar to taste and the spice combination from - um, I 
forgot.  The Redon book, I think.   I used sweetened white grape juice was 
because I prefer the white grape juice tastewise and I couldn't find an 
unsweetened version.  The final color of the punch was like a nice pale red 
wine, with the unfiltered bits from the apple juice giving it a nice 'body'.

Bonne

Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:58:52 
From: "Vincent Cuenca" <bootkiller at hotmail.com>
Subject: SC - Re: Italian drinks?

>Help!  I have a late-period Italian feast to cook in June, and the only
>Italian sources I have are Platina and Santich's Original Mediterranean
>Cuisine.  This is not a problem for food, but I can't find anything to
>suggest what would have been drunk with feasts, except for wine; Santich
>mentions hypocras drunk with the last course, but gives no documentation
>for it.  Does anyone have an recipe for an Italian version of hypocras?
>any mention of cordials (eg lemon cordial)?  Any English translations of
>Italian sources on the web?
>
>JdH

De Nola has recipes for wine and water claries and for hippocras.  He was 
writing for the Catalan court in Naples, and is a few years later than 
Platina. There's an article on water clary in the Flori-thingy; look under 
Beverages for one called "Spiced Wines and Sweet Waters".  This should give 
you some help in redacting.  Here's the raw material from de Nola:

Spices for Clarea

Cinnamon three parts, cloves two parts, ginger one part, all ground and 
passed through a sieve and for an azumbre of white wine add an ounce of 
spices with a pound of honey, well mixed and passed through a sleeve of 
heavy linen enough times that the wine comes out clear.

Water Clarea

To an azumbre of water, four ounces of honey; add the same spices as the 
other clarea; boil the water with the honey and then add the spices off the 
heat.

Spices for Hippocras

Cinnamon five parts, cloves three parts, ginger one part; half the wine 
should be red and the other half white, and for one azumbre six ounces of 
sugar; mix it all in a small glazed pot and bring it to a boil; when it 
reaches the boil, take it off and pass it through the sleeve enough times 
for it to come out clear.

azumbre= 4 pints or approx. 2l.

Vicente

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 09:38:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Hypocras
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

An interesting site, for those who are still intrigued by the spiced 
wine known as Hypocras:

www.hypocras.com

I had not made the stuff in many years, and stumbled across this site 
while 'refreshing my memory'mon the 'proper' spice blend to use.  Interesting that a company still manufactures the stuff, but the best part of the site is the recipe section.  If you can read French (or 'Kitchen French', as
I call it), some of the recipes sound very good.

Duck Fois Gras with Hypocras and caramelized apples sounds particularly 
tempting...

William de Grandfort

Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:42:54 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] HYPOCRAS was Warm Beer was Beverage
	experiments
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

The papers in the Leeds Symposium volumes were originally talks and there aren't as many footnotes or citations as we would like. She doesn't give a footnote for that line.

Certainly from the hours that I spent this evening looking through
EEBO-TCP and then Google Books, it's hard to say that it was always served either cold or hot or warm. There are so many spellings for Hippocras or Ipocras or Hypocras that keyword searching can be almost impossible. Add in words
like heat, hot, warm and the documents multiply without any real results.
Russell doesn't say and neither does the Book of Carving.

OED mentions *C. 1386* Chaucer /Merch. T./ 365 He drynketh Ypocras
Clarree and Vernage Of spices hoote tencreessen his corage.

If the spices are hot in nature, then it might not have been necessary
to heat or warm it.
One character in the play Knavery in all trades, or, The coffee-house a
comedy : as it was acted in the Christmas holidays by several
apprentices with great applause. by John Thatham Printed 1664.

A Cup of Hypocras, 'twill warme thee within Wench; come kiss me, poor
Rogue dost not want a Course this morning?
It could well be that hypocras was warming all on its own without ever
being heated up.

I found such paragraphs as :

"Another recipe is found, much in vogue at
wedding festivals, ' introduced at the commencement of
the banquet, served hot; of so comforting and generous
a nature that the stomach would be at once put into
good temper.' It was constantly served with comfits;
thiw we find Elizabeth Woodville ordering up ' green
ginger, comfits, and ipocras.' Katharine of Arragon
gave ipocras and comfits for the voide."

from Nineteen Centuries of Drink in England: A History - Page 92 by
Richard Valpy French from 1884

**

"This compound was usually given at
marriage festivals, when it was introduced at the commencement
of the banquet, served hot; for it is said to
be of so comforting and generous a nature that the
stomach would be at once put into good temper to
enjoy the meats provided. Hypocras was also a favourite
winter beverage, and we find in an old almanac of 1699
the lines? "
Sack, Hypocras, now, and burnt brandy
Are drinks as warm and good as can be.""

     *From * CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS. On page 18 by Henry Porter, George
     Edwin Roberts ? 1863

Then I came across a passage from The Cloister Life of the Emperor
Charles the Fifth

By William Stirling Maxwell, William Stirling. It dates from 1853 and
mentions that "the Emperor in retirement ?forewent
wine and beer, and drank *hypocras* and *hot* water. *...?"
*

The Victorians seemed to have no doubt that it was drunk warm. *But
*really the need to heat the concoction is open to debate.
Yet searching also produces statements like

"replaced the almost universal use of hot, spiced, red wines (hypocras).
..." from 2002's Wine Tasting: A Professional Handbook by Jackson.

If it's all folklore that it was ever served hot at all, then it's a
widespread legend.
There's a nice*
* website http://www.hypocras.com/ that I found and I would also recommend
Ivan Day's article at http://www.historicfood.com/Hippocras%20Recipes.htm

Johnnae

David Friedman wrote:
> What's her evidence? Is there somewhere a period reference to serving
> it hot? It's clearly heated to make it, at least in some recipes, but
> that doesn't tell us how it was served.
>
>> She says either warm or cold. Johnnae
>>
>> David Friedman wrote:
>>
>>>>  The article to see is this one--
>>>>  Buxton, Moira. "Hypocras, Caudels, Possets and Other Comforting  
>>>> Drinks."  Liquid
>>>>  Nourishment. Potable Foods and Stimulating Drinks. [Food and  
>>>> Society 5.]
>>>>  Ed. By
>>>>  C. Anne Wilson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993. pp. 
>>>> 70-78.
>>>>
>>>>  Johnnae
>>>>
>>>  Does she say if hypocras was served hot? We've generally assumed it
>>>  was, but I don't think i know of any evidence.

From: Mark Schuldenfrei <mark at SCHULDY.ORG>
Date: December 22, 2009 11:44:55 AM CST
To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Recipe Fest Challenge

'wela Brown wrote:
<<< Well, neither had I; but I don't drink wine so I don't know a lot about its usage, past or present.  My parents are the wine afficianados in my family; it gives me migraines.  However, and I will check with him on this (ah, the joys of Facebook reunions!), I believe the hypothesis was along the lines of "Mulling wine does not improve the taste whether it be good wine, bad wine, poor quality wine OR new wine".  I can understand not wanting to try it with bad wine, and I don't know if poor quality wines even make it on the market (would wine vinegar be an appropriate substitute? I'm asking), but they did have a way to test mulling on a good wine and a "new" wine, so they did. >>>

Alas, most of my period sources are not easily accessible to me.

There are many period recipes that I recall for fixing wine
that tastes off - by adding or mixing in ingredients, processing,
and storing again.

There are separate recipes for making spiced wine out of stuff
that already tastes good - and the same techniques apply well
to beer.

I must say, that while my original reaction to the idea of
hot spiced wine or hot flavored beer was not positive,
the flavors have won me over.  They really are very good.

	Tibor

From: Mark Schuldenfrei <mark at SCHULDY.ORG>
Date: December 22, 2009 1:07:02 PM CST
To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu
Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Recipe Fest Challenge

Stefan li Rous wrote:
<<< A poor wine probably doesn't make it to market these days. >>>

I wish I could assure you that you were wrong. :-)  Basically,
if you want to know, open a box. :-)

<<< No, vinegar would not be a good substitute. >>>

Certainly not, once the alcohol has been converted to acetic
acid.

<<< I made Hippocras for a Royal Luncheon I served several years ago but I'd love to hear of other's experiences in making spiced wine/hippocras. What quality of wine did you use? Red or white wine? Which spices? How did it turn out? >>>

I've always used a medium quality red wine, something with
a bolder flavor like a Bordeux, Merlot or a heavy Cabernet.
I often usually use some kind of pepper (long pepper if I
can get it), grains of paradise, and a sweet spice like
cinnamon.

I've never tried it with white - I don't know why.

	Tibor

Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2012 13:47:58 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
To: SCA-Cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] do someone know about the Greek mastic?

Ana Valdes asked about uses for mastic.

Mastic is an important flavor component in Conditum Paradoxum. Below is an alcohol-free version I made for my Greco-Roman feast with 26 different dishes. That feast was something of a challenge because the Princess had several potentially deadly allergies, the Prince followed some specific dietary rules, and several attendees had fish allergies. We managed to pull it off without making anyone sick.

I made a lamb version of lucanicae sausages for this feast, altered because the Prince did not eat pork and I also had ham in the same course. The night I was mixing the ingredients by hand at home, we had an earthquake - and there I was, up past my wrists in greasy meat and spices and unable to turn a doorknob...

Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)

-= Conditum Paradoxum - Spiced (White Grape Juice) Surprise =-

Original:
Spiced Wine Surprise is made as follows: 15 lb. of honey are put in a metal vessel into which you have previously put 2 pints of wine, so as to boil down the wine while cooking the honey. It is heated over a slow fire of dry wood, stirring all the while with a stick; when it begins to boil over it is checked by adding [cold] wine; it also sinks when removed from the fire. When cool it is heated once more. This must be done a second and third time, and only then is it removed from the fire, and skimmed on the following day. Then take 4 oz. pepper, 3 scruples of pounded mastic, a handful each of aromatic leaf [a number of scholars believe this is malabathron/malabathrum - known in much of South Asia as tejpat] and saffron, 5 roasted date-stones, the dates softened in wine, having previously been soaked in wine of the right kind and quality, so as to produce a soft mash. These preparations completed, pour over 18 pints of sweet wine. In the end add coals, if it is too bitter.
- - - - - Apicius, Book I, Chapter I, Recipe 1 (Flower & Rosenbaum trans.)

My Version for 80

5-1/3 cans White Grape Juice Concentrate
Water, enough to make 2 gallons of juice
10 fresh Dates, soaked in juice
3 lb. Honey
1/2 cup White Wine Vinegar
1/2 cup Verjus/Sour Green Grape Juice
1-1/2 Tb. ground Black Pepper
10 Bay Leaves,as substitute for Malabathron (Tejpat) Leaves
3/4 tsp. Saffron
3/4 tsp. Gum Mastic

1. Reconstitute juice.
2. Soak dates in a small amount of juice until soft.
3. When soft, put in blender with a bit more juice and blend until pureed and liquidy. 4. Mix 6 cups of juice with honey and bring to boil.
5. Add seasonings and dates and cook on medium-low heat for a while, until mastic melts, stirring occasionally.
NOTE: The mastic never completely dissolved and some stuck to the bay leaves.
6. Add remainder of juice, then stir in vinegar and verjus to taste.
7. Let stand overnight.
8. Strain/decant. Some of the pepper settled out, and I intentionally left it behind when the juice was decanted. I like the bite it added but I was concerned many diners might find it unexpected and unpleasant.
9. Serve.
10. Dilute to taste with water, if desired.

NOTES:
-- I really tried to find tejpat/malabathron/malabathrum leaves (Cinnamomum tamala). There is a significant South Asian community where I live and I went to South Asian markets and asked for them. I was shown some leaves that looked a lot like bay, and when I asked the proprietors they said that this is what they use in the US and it tastes a lot like the original. While I am not utterly convinced they taste the same, that's what I used.

-- I skipped the roasted date stones.

-- This should have been made with wine. However, SCA rules do not allow the purchase of wine or other alcohol for serving as beverages with organization moneys. Therefore I substituted white grape juice, spiked with Middle Eastern sour white grape juice so it wouldn't be too cloying.

-- This was a surprise hit. Several folks who said they very much disliked white grape juice because it was too cloyingly sweet asked me for the recipe.

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