Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Mead Lovers Digest #0777
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #777, 30 December 1999
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #777 30 December 1999
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Melomels made with juice & cold storage (Vicky Rowe)
Re: Mead - Wedding History (Dan McFeeley)
Contributions of Blackberries (Shannon & Angela Menkveld)
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
==== Next Digest will be after 1/2/2000. Any pending articles will ====
==== be held as usual until the next digest. ====
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com.
Use mead-request@talisman.com for [un]subscribe/admin requests. When
subscribing, please include name and email address in body of message.
Digest archives and FAQ are available for anonymous ftp at ftp.stanford.edu
in pub/clubs/homebrew/mead.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Melomels made with juice & cold storage
From: Vicky Rowe <gotmead@mindspring.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 01:04:22 -0500
> Subject: Melomels made with juice & cold storage
> From: "Tim Green" <timothygreen@earthlink.net>
> Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 09:48:52 -0500
>
> I started a batch of cherry mel about 3 months ago.
>
> Having the unfortunate problem of having made more must that my
> fermenter would hold, I put the remaining gallon in a one gallon jug and
> airlocked it.
>
> The batch was made as follows:
>
> 10# of raw wildflower honey
> 5 gallons of sour cherry juice (pre-sweetened for wine making)
>
> I dissolved the honey in about 2 quarts of the juice and heated it
> enough to allow it to pasturize. The remainder of the juice I had
> sulfated 2 days before.
>
> I put the must in a 5 gallon carboy and a 1 gallon jug, pitched 2 packs
> of Lavin EC-1118 in the carboy and one pack in the jug.
>
> Recient samples have been dry with just a touch of sweetness and seem to
> have better fruit character than I have ever achieved using whole fruit.
>
> Has anyone else tried making mead from honey and juice?
>
Yeah, I brought 4 gallons of pasteurized sour cherry juice back from
Michigan with me this summer. I pitched it with 1 gal of star thistle
honey I got up there.
The recipe is as follows:
1 gal star thistle honey
4 gal sour cherry juice
12 tbsp molasses
crushed pits (mahlab) in the secondary, about a handful
Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast
25 tbsp brandy just before bottling
The mead is maturing nicely, and has a nice cherry-nutty flavor.
> The gallon jug was inadvertantly placed in my garage fridge when we
> moved into our new house about 8 weeks ago. I don't remember why I put
> it in, but I sampled it last night and was amazed. It is pale pink, has
> dropped completely clear, and can only be classified as semi-sweet. It
> is truly wonderful, the best mead I have ever tasted. I am tempted ti
> put the other 5 gallons in the fridge.
>
Yeah, I did that with a gallon too, and let it sit with the big batch.
I just finished off with about 1/4 cup of brandy, and it's sweet and
yummy.
- --
Vicky Rowe
Satori Digital Marketing, LLC
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead - Wedding History
From: Dan McFeeley <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 10:33:24 -0600
I've been reading the recent posts on this list on the tradition of mead
and the honeymoon and wanted to throw in some input. Although there is
a fair amount of material to be found on a custom of a 30 day's supply
of mead, I was not able to find historical documentation of the custom.
Much of it was in the form of "I have heard . . . " or "it has been
said . . .", which made me wonder if the custom was ever practiced in
the form in which it has been reported. Here are some of examples
below.
An article by Roger Morse titled "Honey Wine and Vinegar" (_Gleanings in
Bee Culture_, vo. 81, 1953) has the following to say:
Funk and Wagnall's dictionary (1930) states that the ancient
Teutons, who lived on the Elbe and first appeared in about 200
B.C., made a mead or methegalin [sic]. The higher orders of this
civilization drank honey wine for the first 30 days after marriage.
Our word "honeymoon" is based upon this practice and from the
Teutons comes the expression "to spend the honeymoon." (p.461)
Roger Morse has been very important in advancing meadmaking techniques,
but he is not a professional historian. There is no documenation of the
historical source of the tradition he cites, making his assertions
questionable. It doesn't mean Morse is wrong, without historical
documentation of the sources it's impossible to say if he is right.
Moritz Jagendorf, in _Folk Wines, Cordials & Brandies_ (Vangard Press, Inc.,
New York, 1963) has much to say about folklore and traditions in country
winemaking. In his section on mead he offers this:
Like most of us, I associate this wine (i.e., mead) with the
Nordic peoples and with "Old England" -- the Anglo-Saxon. In
bygone days mead was drunk by the wedding guests for a full month
after the ceremony, and thus we have the word "honeymoon."
But of course honey wine was known in even older times among
all the races in the North and in other lands and climes. The
Norsemen drank it during their ritual feasts. (p. 333)
Another citation I found for the mead tradition of the honeymoon was in
Pamela Spence's book, _Mad About Mead!_:
"Honeymoon," a term that we are all familiar with, is a specific
reference to mead. The term comes from an old English tradition
that dates from the Middle Ages. Mead was drunk in great quantities
at weddings, and after the ceremony nuptial couples were given a
month's supply of mead -- sufficient for one full cycle of the moon.
It was believed that by faithfully drinking mead for that first month
the woman would "bear fruit" and a child would be born within the year.
If, indeed, the woman conceived, success was attributed to the skill
of the meadmaker. The ability to produce life, that divine power, was
believed to be imparted through the indulgence of the gods who gave
humans access to the dew of heaven: honey, for their mead. (p. 27)
With respect to Pamela Spence, founder of the former American Mead Association
and an important figure in the advancement of meadmaking in the U.S., there
is no documentation of her sources for the honeymoon tradition, as also in
Jagendorf's account, again making it impossible to verify the tradition.
It's *ommission* in a number of good sources on tradition and history in
honey and meadmaking is significant. Amy Ransome's _The Sacred Bee_
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1937), a dated but fascinating compendium of
folklore and tradition in beekeeping, doesn't mention it. Neither does
English author Eva Crane in _Honey: A Comprehensive Survey_ (Crane, Russak
& Company, Inc., NY, 1975). Ann Hagen's two volume series _A Handbook of
Anglo-Saxon Food & Drink_ covers the use of mead and drinking habits among
the Anglo-Saxons, but does not mention the honeymoon tradition. Even the
good Lt. Colonel Robert Gayre in _Wassail! In Mazers of Mead_ (reprint of
the 1948 edition through Brewers Publications, Boulder CO, 1986) is silent
on the subject other than to say in passing, in his chapter titled "Non-Aryan
Honey Liquors":
. . . While, on the contrary, there are myths and practices among
these colored peoples which make it clear that in certain essentials
there is nothing in common between their heritage and our own. For
instance, there is not merely no equivalent of our honeymoon tradition,
with its feasts of mead, but the very opposite. For instance the Thonga
people of South Africa severely restrict the use of honey for a year
after marriage! (p. 69)
Eva Crane does have this to say in _A Book on Honey_ (N.Y., Oxford University
Press, 1980):
In marriage ceremonies, the use of honey occurs constantly in
the entire Indo-European region and among many peoples outside
it. Honey seems to have been a symbol of the sweetness of love
in prehistoric times, as in every age since, and the poetry of
people all over the world compares the sweetness of love with
honey. (The ancient Indian god of love, Kama, carred a bow
whose string was made of a chain of bees.)
The word 'honeymoon,' however, probably carries no more significance
than that the first month of mariage is the sweetest; it does not
refer to a month-long feasting on honey. In the marriage ceremony
itself honey was, and is, used variously as a gift, for eating, for
drinking as mead, and for annointing and smearing on the lintel and
door posts of the new home. (p. 132)
This last statement seems accurate. There is ample documentation of the
symbolic significance of honey and mead in feasting and celebration, but
little or no specific mention of a tradition of a month's supply of mead
folowing a wedding ceremony, aside from citations that present, at best,
as secondary or even tertiary sources. It's more likely that mead was
part of the feast celebrations in wedding ceremonies, especially in
countries like England where it has been extremely popular, and it may
be the echoes of these wedding feasts that we are hearing in the accounts
of mead and the honeymoon.
I'm going to keep checking into this -- if I find anything else, I'll post
it to the list.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
------------------------------
Subject: Contributions of Blackberries
From: Shannon & Angela Menkveld <shannon.menkveld@gte.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 20:42:50 -0800
Hello, all.
I was wondering if anyone on the list had any data about the
contribution of blackberries to specific gravity and color. I am making
a blackberry melomel, and want the info for my ingredient database. My
software uses pts/lb/gal, for both S.G. and color (SRM). Any feedback
will be appreciated.
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #777
*******************************
