TO MAKE WHITE MEATH
Take Rose-mary, Thyme, Sweet-bryar, Peny-royal, and Bays, Water-cresses, Agrimony, Marsh-mallows, leaves and flowers: Liver-wort, Wood-betony, Eye-bright, Scabious, of each alike quantity; of the bark of Ash-tree, of Eringo-roots-green, of each a proportion to the herbs; of wild Angelica, Ribwort, Sanicle, Roman-worm-wood, of each a proportion, which is, to every handful of the Herbs above named, a sixteenth part of a handful of these latter; steep them a night and a day, in a woodden boul of water covered; the next day boil them very well in another water, till the colour be very high; Then take another quantity of water, and boil the herbs in it, till it look green, and so let it boil three or four times, or as long as the liquor looketh any thing green; then let it stand with these herbs in it a day and a night.
To every Gallon of this water, put a quart of pure clear honey, the Liquor being first strained from the herbs. Your Liquor if it be strong enough will bear an Egg, the breadth of a three pence above water. When you have put the honey into the Liquor, you must work and Labour it together a whole day, until the honey be consumed. Then let it stand a whole night again a clearing. Then put it into a kettle, and let it boil a quarter of an hour, with the whites and shells of six Eggs; Then strain it clean, and so let it stand a cooling. Then put it into a barrel, and take Cloves, Mace, Cinamon, Nutmegs, and beat them together: put them into a linnen bag, hang it with a thread into the barrel. If you would have it work, that you may drink of it presently, take the whites of two or three Eggs, a spoonful of barm, a spoonful of wheat-flower; beat all these together: Let it work, before you stop it up. Then afterwards stop it well with clay and salt tempered together, to keep it moist.
TO MAKE METHEGLIN
If your honey be tryed, take six Gallons of Milk-warm-water, to one of honey, and stir it well together ever and anon, and so let it stand for a day and night, or half a day may serve; then boil it with a gentle fire, for the space of half an hour or thereabouts, and skim it, still as the skum ariseth. After it is scummed once or twice, you may put in your herbs, and spice grosly beaten, one half loose; the other in a bag, which afterwards may be fastned with a string to the tap-hole, as Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Ginger and the like; when it is thus boiled, let it stand in the vessel until it be cooled; then Tun it up into your barrel, and let it work two or three days, or more before you stop the bung-hole; but in putting up the boiled liquor into the barrel, reserve the thick grounds back, which will be settled in the pan or kettle.
If you would have it to drink within two or three months, let it be no stronger then to bear an Egg to the top of the water. If you would have it keep six months, or longer, before you drink it, let it bear up the Egg the breadth of two pence above the water. This is the surer way to proportion your honey then by measure. And the time of the tryal of the strength is, when you incorporate the honey and water together, before the boiling of it.
ANOTHER SORT OF MEATH
Take thirty six Gallons of fountain water (first boiled, &c.) and dissolve twelve Gallons of Honey in it. Keep them boiling an hour and a half after they begin to boil, skimming well all the while. It will be an hour upon the fire before it boil. When it is clear and enough boiled, pour it out into woodden vessels to cool. When you are ready to Tun it, have four Gallons of Black-currants, bruise them in a stone mortar, that they may the more easily part with their juyce to the Liquor. Put them and their juyce into the barrel, and pour the cool Liquor upon them, so as the vessel be quite full. Cover the bung with a plate of lead lying loose on, that the working of the Liquor may lift it up, as it needeth to cast out the filth. And still as it worketh over, fill it up with fresh Liquor, made in the same proportion of honey and water. A moneth after it works no longer, stop up the bung very close.
TO MAKE VERY GOOD METHEGLIN