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Did you know that traditional vinegars were made by fermentation?
Did you know that mead -- honey "wine" -- isn't the only historical, fermented beverage made with honey?
Did you know that soda pop and non-alcoholic beers have a history that goes back at least to the 10th century?
People have been making flavored beverages since the dawn of history -- not all of those were the shelf-stable products we expect today.
This is especially true of sodas. Yeast will not begin to make alcohol until they have used every drop of oxygen dissolved in the brew. The trick is to refrigerate (or drink) these as soon as they get bubbly, to stop the yeast!
Other beverages, like the "young mead" of the sagas, were served when only SOME of the sugars had been converted to alcohol. Again, refrigerate or drink them when you like the taste.
And still others were made after the wine (or hard cider) had turned to vinegar... another type of fermentation.
NEW: Four beverages for a medieval Polish vigil
NEW: Four beverages for a medieval Polish vigil
When we were invited to make drinks for a late-medieval Polish event, we asked: "What fruits, spices, and herbs did they have access to?" “What types of beverages did they drink?” The first extant cookbook written in Polish was published in 1682, well into the Renaissance. Medieval recipes, when they do exist, tend to be for “special occasions” dishes. Recipes for everyday beverages and foods (bread, boiled peas, fried eggs, etc.) are difficult to find.
We do have some medieval records that mention the names and types of beverages. In some cases, beverages by the same name are still made and drunk in Poland today. We located reports that compiled written records about food and found archaeobotanical surveys for 13th-15th century Poland. From these, we created four different recipes that are plausible for the time and place.
Included recipes, in order of complexity:
Kompot z malin: a refreshing fruity drink, served cold, from stewed raspberries and honey (non-alcoholic)
Grzane wino: hot mulled wine with a Polish twist -- or, for a non-alcoholic version, tart red grape juice
Piwo miodowe, 2 variations: beer brewed with honey and gruit herbs or spices
Beverages for a medieval Polish vigil.pdfBeverage syrups from vinegar and fruit juices
Beverage syrups from vinegar and fruit juices
Many recipes for non-alcoholic beverages can be found in medieval cookbooks from the Islamic world. Many of these drinks were considered medicinal. Our favorite source is the Annals of the Caliph's Kitchens: Ibn Sayya'ar al-Warra'aq’s Tenth-Century Baghdadi Cookbook, English translation by Nawal Nasrallah (2007, ISBN 978 90 04 15867 2). An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century is another good source.
This first group of drinks can be prepared as concentrates, then diluted at serving time. The sugar and acidity are high enough to provide some shelf stability, making them an excellent choice for camping events.
This group includes sharbats, sweetened fruit and vegetable syrups. Sweetened vinegar drinks, usually flavored with herbs / spices, might be labeled as: oxymel, sekanjabin, posca, shrub, or switchel.
We provide recipes for: tamarind sharbat, sekanjabin with mint and lime, and posca with coriander.
Sharbat sekanjabin and posca.pdfNon-alcoholic fermented soda
Non-alcoholic fermented soda
The Annals of the Caliph's Kitchens also includes some fermented non-alcoholic drinks. Soda recipes specifically tell you to ferment the brew for brief periods of time. Medieval interpretations of the Islamic religious proscription on alcohol allowed beverages that were fermented "not exceeding three days." With modern yeasts, I keep it to 24 hours or less!
You can also design your own recipes, based on fruit juices, herbs, and spices. You control the amount and type of sugar. Be inspired by historical and modern sources.
Fermented soda is fast and easy to make, so it's a great place for beginning brewers to start out. And it's a great topic for a family-friendly SCA demo.
Is it really that simple? YES!
Here is our class handout on how to make sodas. If you are just starting out, we recommend you start with plastic soda bottles -- you can feel the pressure build up and it's easy to know when to pop them into the fridge. Glass bottles take a bit more finesse.
The handout has detailed instructions and four recipes to start you on your journey: honey-apple soda, crabapple (raspberry, sour cherry, etc.) soda, ginger beer from fresh ginger, and a redaction of fuqa'a al-asal (spiced honey beer) from the Caliph's cookbook.
Homemade Fermented Soda Handout_rev2.pdfLive meads at 5-7% Alcohol
Live meads at 5-7% Alcohol
The sagas tell us of "young mead" and "old mead". Some historical recipes for mead describe prolonged fermentation periods, bottling & aging, and produced a shelf-stable bottled product -- but many call for short fermentations and have instructions to drink it fresh, straight from the barrel or vat, within a few weeks. Some are even called out as being a bit effervescent!
We interpret this to mean there were historically two broad categories of alcoholic honey brews: those made like wine, not unlike the mead we buy at the grocery story today, and those made like beer. Like the British "live beer" movement, we recognize the space for "live meads" -- beverages that still have natural yeast in them. A little cloudy, a little bubbly, a little sweet, a little alcoholic.
The most common response we get in tastings? "Wow, that's refreshing!"
What a great party drink for a hall full of warriors! It would have been easy for a village or a lord to make a barrel of live mead for a festival or wedding. And it's easy for us to throw together a couple of gallons for a weekend event. A cooler full of ice, and we're ready to go.
Half-gallons in fermentation
Cold-crashing in the fridge
Ready to drink
Live meads are another great choice for beginning brewers. Yeast only produce "off flavors" when they are metabolically stressed, and these particular yeasts live a charmed life. They are asked to do very little -- not to survive high sugar or high alcohol concentrations, and they never run out of nutrients. (As most meadmakers know, honey alone is a poor nutrient source. Adding whole herbs, fruit juices, or just a dash of yeast nutrient makes all the difference.)
In modern terms, we start out with a hydromel, as you might for a short mead / session mead -- Brix 15-18, SG 1.060-1.070 -- but we don't ferment it until all the sugar is gone!
Cold-crash to stop the yeast when it tastes good to you -- we aim for 5-6% alcohol and 2-4% residual sugar. This gives us a beer-like ABV and a sweetness that's enough to say "honey" without becoming "syrupy."
Other people might filter to remove the yeast or pasteurize / sorbate to stop them, but we just keep these on ice. The traditional solution was "drink it fast!" -- HUZZAH! -- and we enjoy the light fizziness that cold-crashing preserves.
Overall, live meads allow first-time meadmakers to have a successful experience and an immediately drinkable product.
Here is our class handout with some recipes: a simple hydromel, sour cherry melomel, rosemary and ginger metheglin, and hops and sage metheglin.
Note: Feel free to substitute your favorite yeast strain. I favor Lalvin's D47, a wine yeast with low phenol production, good preservation of the honey "nose", and high flocculation that allows us to pour the brew off most of the lees after just a day in the fridge.
Live Mead Recipes handout.pdfHydromels at 8% (or so) alcohol
Hydromels at 8% (or so) alcohol
Recipes coming soon!
Hydromels, literally "hydro-" meaning water and "-mel" meaning honey, are meads brewed with lower starting honey than a full-strength "standard mead" or an extra-strong-and-sweet "sack mead." A modern marketing term you may have heard is "session mead."
Hydromels have a long and storied history, with some actual recipes surviving from the medieval period. They start out much like live meads, but you allow the yeast to keep going until they absolutely run out of sugar they can ferment -- or inhibit themselves in a sea of ethanol and acids. Historically, these meads were flavored with a variety of fruit juices or herbs/spices.
As a group, hydromels are refreshing and summery, perhaps reminding you of a dry cider. They have good clarity and honey scent but little to no sweetness; if you like it sweeter, make 1:1 honey simple syrup and stir a spoonful or two into your glass of hydromel.
They generally ferment quickly and can be racked at two weeks, then bottled at 4-6 weeks of age. Drink these fresh, with no significant need for aging. These are another good entry-level group of beverages for new brewers.
Ciders, sack meads, and country wines
Ciders, sack meads, and country wines
Country wines -- fruit wines made with everything except grapes -- apple and pear ciders, and honey wines (made plain, or with fruit or spices added) are also part of our repertoire.
But we haven't taught a class on these! So there isn't a handout (yet?).
With limited storage space to age bottles, we make 1-gallon batches. Small amounts, in a wide variety of flavors. Just enough for home use....
Then Sif came forward and poured mead for Loki in a crystal cup, and said:
"Hail to thee, Loki, | and take thou here / The crystal cup of old mead;
For me at least, | alone of the gods, / Blameless thou knowest to be."
from the Lokasenna
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