With the “Chineses” must be of course included the gallant little Japaneses, with which nation English chroniclers had but a slight acquaintance three hundred years ago.

Without enquiring too closely into the nature of Red Falernian, Coan, Massic, or any of the Roman vintages at the time of dear old Horatius Flaccus, let us take a glance over the wine-lists {27} of our own country, from the Saxon period. And the first thing which will naturally strike the observer is the heavy, loaded nature of their dinner drinks. A little later on, Sack did duty for the “inferior sherry” of the Victorian era, although a Sack-and-Angostura was not a frequent demand amongst the young bloods of the period. On the festive boards of the Saxons appeared, besides ale of the strongest and cider of the roughest, home-made wines, mead, morat, metheglin, and more or less odoriferous pigments. In case any enterprising ratepayer should elect to give his guests

Mead,

at his next house-warming, here is the ancient recipe.

Take of spring-water what quantity you please, and make it more than blood-warm, and dissolve honey in it till ’tis strong enough to bear an egg, the breadth of a shilling; then boil it gently near an hour, taking of the scum as it rises; then put to about nine or ten gallons seven or eight large blades of mace, three nutmegs quartered, twenty cloves, three or four sticks of cinnamon, two or three roots of ginger, and a quarter of an ounce of Jamaica pepper; put these spices into the kettle to the honey and water, a whole lemon, with a sprig of sweet-briar and a sprig of rosemary; tie the briar and rosemary together, and when they have boiled a little while take them out and throw them away; but let your liquor stand on the spice in a clean earthen pot till the next day; then strain it into a vessel that is fit for it; put the spice in a bag, and hang it in the vessel, stop it, and at three months {28} draw it into bottles. Be sure that ’tis fine when ’tis bottled; after ’tis bottled six weeks ’tis fit to drink.

Fancy drinking Mead with your soup!

Morat was made of honey flavoured with mulberry juice; and Pigment—which might be drunk at the Royal Academy banquets—was a sweet and rich liquor evolved from highly-spiced wine flavoured with honey.

Metheglin

was also called Hydromel and Oinomel. “The best Receipt whereof,” writes an authority, “that I have observed to be made by them is thus:—

They take rasberries which grow in those parts (i.e. Swedeland, Muscovia, Russia, and as far as the Caspian Sea) and put them into fair water for two or three nights (I suppose they bruise them first) that the water may extract their taste and colour. Into this water they put of the purest honey, in proportion about one pound of honey to three or four of water. Then to give it a fermentation they put a tost into it dipp’d in the dregs or grounds of beer, which when it hath set the metheglin at work they take out again, to prevent any ill savour it may give; if they desire to ferment it long they set it in a warm place; which when they please to hinder or stop, they remove it into a cool place; after it hath done fermenting they draw it off the lee for present use; to add to its excellency they hang in it a little bagg, wherein is cinnamon, grains of paradise, and a few cloves. This may do very well for present drinking. But if you would make your metheglin of the same ingredients, and to be kept (time {29} meliorating any sort of drinks) you may preserve your juice of rasberries at the proper season. And when you make your metheglin, decoct your honey and water together, and when it is cold then add your juice of rasberries which was before prepared to keep, and purifie your metheglin by the means before prescrib’d, or ferment it, either by a tost dipp’d in yest, or by putting a spoonful of yest unto it, to which you may add the little bagg of spices before mention’d. Then let it stand about a month to be thorowly purified, and then bottle it, and preserve it for use, and it may in time become a curious drink.”