Mead. No. 1.
In six gallons of water dissolve fourteen pounds of honey; then add three or four eggs, with the whites; set it upon the fire, and let it boil half an hour. Put into it balm, sweet marjoram, and sweet briar, of each ten sprigs, half an ounce of cinnamon, the same of mace, twenty cloves, and half a race of ginger sliced very thin: let it boil a quarter of an hour; then take it off the fire, pour it into a tub, and let it remain till nearly cold. Take six ounces of syrup of citron, and one spoonful of ale yest; beat them well together, put it into the liquor, and let it stand till cold. Take a sufficient quantity of coarse bread to cover the barrel, and bake it very hard; then take as much ale yest as will spread it over thin, put it into the liquor, and let it stand till it comes to a head. Strain it out; put the liquor into a cask, and add to it a quart of the best Rhenish wine. When it has done working, stop it up close, and let it stand a month; then draw it out into bottles; tie the corks down close; and let them stand a month.
Mead. No. 2.
Ten quarts of honey boiled one hour with thirty quarts of water; when cold, put it into a cask, and add to it one ounce of cinnamon, one of cloves, two of ginger, and two large nutmegs, to be pounded first, and suspended in a linen bag in the barrel from the bung-hole. The scum must be filtered through a flannel bag.
Mead. No. 3.
Take eight gallons of spring water, twelve pounds of honey, four pounds of powdered sugar; boil them for an hour, keeping it well skimmed. Let it stand all night; the next day, put it into your vessel, keeping back the sediment; hang in your vessel two or three lemon-peels; then stop it up close; in the summer, bottle it in six weeks.
Mithridate Brandy.
Take four gallons of brandy; infuse a bushel of poppies twenty-four hours; then strain it, and put two ounces of nutmegs, the same of liquorice, and of pepper and ginger, and one ounce each of cinnamon, aniseed, juniper-berries, cloves, fennel-seed, and cardamom seed, two drachms of saffron, two pounds of figs sliced, and one pound of the sun raisins stoned. All these must be put into an earthen pot, and set in the sun three weeks; then strain it, and mix with it two ounces of Venice treacle, two ounces of mithridate, and four pounds of sugar. This is an approved remedy for the gout in the stomach.
Nonpareil.
Pare six lemons very thin, put the rinds and juice into two quarts of brandy; let it remain well corked four days. Set on the fire three quarts of spring water and two pounds of sugar, and clarify it with two whites of eggs; let it boil a quarter of an hour; take the scum off, and let it stand till cold. Put it to your brandy; add two quarts of white wine, and strain it through a flannel bag; fill the cask, and it will clarify itself. You may bottle it in a week. Orange-peel greatly improves this liquor.