Chapter XXX: Mead

Prior to the introduction of agriculture into Britain, mead was the principal cordial beverage of its inhabitants. In other northern nations also it was formerly in high estimation. This must have proceeded, either from their unpampered simplicity of taste, or from their having a better method of making their mead than has been handed down to posterity; for certainly in the present day it is a liquor seldom heard of, and still seldomer made; and when made, holding a very humble rank among our imperfect vinous productions. It however continued in favour long after the introduction of malt liquor, and the northern inhabitants of Europe drank it generally until very modern times. To show how highly it was formerly esteemed in this country, I will give an extract from an ancient law of the principality of Wales, where "the praises of it, accompanied by the lyre, resounded through the spacious halls of her princes." "There are three things in Court which must be communicated to the king, before they are made known to any other person.

"1st, Every sentence of the judge;
2nd, Every new song; and
3rd, Every cask of Mead."

Mead-making appears to have been regarded by our forefathers as a high and important avocation; at the courts of the Princes of Wales, the mead-maker was the eleventh person in dignity, and took place of the physician. We read in the English History, that Ethelstan a subordinate king of Kent, in the tenth century, on paying a visit to his relation Ethelfleda felt very much delighted that there was no deficiency of mead. According to the custom at royal feasts, it was served up in cut horns and other vessels of various sizes. About the same period, it was customary to allow the monks a sextareum (about a pint) of mead between six of them at dinner, and half the quantity at supper.

It was probably the liquor called by Ossian, the joy and strength of shells, with which his heroes were so much delighted; the Caledonian drinking-vessels having consisted of large shells, which are still used by their posterity in some parts of the Highlands. Mention is sometimes made also of the Feast of Shells.

Mead was the ideal nectar of the Scandinavian nations, which they expected to quaff in heaven out of the skulls of their enemies; and, as may reasonably be supposed, the liquor which they exalted thus highly in their _imaginary celestial banquets_, was not forgotten at those which they _really_ indulged in _upon earth_. Hence may be inferred the great attention which must have been paid to the culture of the bee in those days, or there could not have been an adequate supply of honey for the production of mead, to satisfy the demand of such thirsty tribes.

The mythology of Scandinavia (the religion of our Gothic ancestors) was imparted by Sigge or Odin, a chieftain who migrated from Scythia with the whole of his tribe, and subdued either by arms or arts the northern parts of Europe. From him descended Alaric and Attila. In the singular paradise which Odin sketched for his followers, the principal pleasure was to be derived from war and carnage; after the daily enjoyment of which, they were to sit down to a feast of boar's flesh and mead. The mead was to be handed to them in the skulls of their enemies, by virgins somewhat resembling the houri of the Mahometan paradise, and plentiful draughts were to be taken, until intoxication should crown their felicity. Hence the poet +Penrose+ thus commences his "Carousal of Odin."

"Fill the honey'd bev'rage high,
Fill the skulls, 'tis Odin's cry!
Heard ye not the powerful call,
Thundering through the vaulted hall?
Fill the meath and spread the board,
Vassals of the grisly lord!--
The feast begins, the skull goes round
Laughter shouts--the shouts resound!"

Hence likewise, in an ode by +Mr. Stirling+, we find the following illustration of the northern Elysium.

"Their banquet is the mighty chine
Exhaustless, the stupendous boar;
Virgins of immortal line
Present the goblet foaming o'er:
Of heroes' skulls the goblet made,
With figur'd deaths and snakes of gold inlaid."

Boar's flesh was considered by these tribes as the highest delicacy; the celestial boar was supposed to be daily renewed, and to afford an ample repast for the most numerous party: a quantity of mead also, sufficient for the intoxication of this paradisiacal community, was imagined to be daily supplied by a goat called Heidruna,

"Whose spacious horn would fill the bowl
That rais'd to rapture Odin's soul;
And ever drinking, ever dry--
Still the copious stream supply."

+Cottle+

I could not refrain from adducing these short historical and poetical evidences of the high estimation in which mead was held by our northern ancestors. I trust that I shall also stand excused for still further lengthening my preamble by entering upon _the general principles of wine-making_.

_The grand desiderata in wine are strength, flavour, and pleasantness:_--to accomplish the first, sugar must be converted by fermentation into alcohol; the second depends upon the article to be vinified, and upon the management of the process of vinification; flavour may likewise be produced artificially by different adjuncts: pleasantness will principally result from the same causes, but more especially from the liquor holding in solution a certain quantity of unconverted sugar.

_The elements necessary to a due fermentation_ and to bring the process to a satisfactory issue, _are sugar, extractive matter, acid of tartar_, and _water_. These exist in the highest perfection and in the best relative proportions in _the grape_: hence the superiority of foreign wines. Whoever therefore expects to imitate, with much effect, those generous liquors, must supply in the process those ingredients in which the article sought to be converted into wine is deficient.

If the native juices of fruits be deficient in sugar, it will be impossible to convert them into a strong wine without a proper supply of that ingredient; and without a sufficiency of extractive matter, which is the natural ferment, a due fermentation could not be established; the wine would be sweet, but not potent; _sweet wines being the produce of an incomplete fermentation_. If the extractive matter were in excess, the liquor would have a tendency to the acetous fermentation, which might also be induced by a superabundant proportion of water.

_The result of a complete fermentation is a dry wine;_ to produce which, the elements must all be nicely balanced, and the process conducted under favourable circumstances, with respect to temperature, tunning, stopping down, &c.

Two opposite practices prevail, in the manufacture of the same sort of wine; _some wine-makers boiling the juices before fermentation, others conducting the whole process without boiling:_ the propriety or impropriety of these practices depends upon the quality of the juices to be vinified. Extractive matter is partially coagulable by heat; boiling therefore, by causing this matter to separate and to be deposited, tends to the production of a sweet wine. The extractive matter may also be precipitated by sulphuric acid gas, (burning in the cask a brimstone match as hereafter directed,) or by sulphuric acid itself, with which the soluble leaven forms an insoluble compound. Hence where the extractive matter is in excess, and where there is danger of fermentation going on too rapidly, boiling or sulphuring will be useful both to the wine and cider-maker, in checking or preventing fermentation. The superfluous extract thrown up in the course of fermentation as yeast, or deposited as lees, will, if remixed with the liquor, have the effect of continuing the fermentation: hence the utility of racking and fining, where it is in excess; and of re-union, where it is deficient. _Artificial leaven or yeast_, which contains the extractive principle in great abundance, affords a supply to those juices which are deficient in it, and without which they will not ferment. _Natural leaven_ (i. e. _extractive matter_) is soluble in cold water, artificial leaven is not: during fermentation, therefore, the latter is always thrown off; so also is the greater part of the former, if the process be well conducted.

Most of the fruits of this country abound in _malic acid_; those that possess only a moderate quantity of it, however, afford excellent wine with the addition of sugar only; still better wine may be obtained by the further addition of the acid of tartar. Where the malic acid prevails so abundantly as to make its neutralization desirable. +Dr. McCulloch+, (to whom I am indebted for much of the information contained in this chapter,) recommends the coating of the insides of the fermenting vats with a white wash of hot _caustic lime_. I have neutralized the malic acid, by putting into the cask, after the sensible fermentation has been completed, about a pound of _egg shells_ to every sixty gallons of wine.

The acid of tartar increases the fermenting power of fluids: half-ripe fruits possess it in greatest abundance; hence the vivacity of champagne and green gooseberry wine. It is most conveniently used in the state of supertartrate of potash or common cream of tartar: the common rough tartar is in some respects preferable, as its admixture of yeast assists in perfecting the fermentation.

All vegetables contain more or less of extractive matter; those that possess little may be assisted in their fermentation, by that process being conducted in wooden vessels, wood supplying the extractive principle to the liquor; the same juices therefore which would ferment very well in wood, would scarcely ferment at all in glass or earthenware.

The extractive matter and the sugar are seldom completely destroyed in any wines; the existence of the former is evinced, by the skinny matter frequently deposited upon the insides of the wine-bottles; the latter may be detected, by a nice palate, in the very driest of our wines; its predominance indicates an inferior wine.

From the preceding observations, my readers have probably anticipated my opinion of _honey, in wine-making_. I regard it merely as _a substitute for sugar_; and to those who approve of its flavour I recommend the following _directions_, which I have successfully followed for several years, having my home-made wines enriched with a considerable portion of foreign flavour.--Dissolve an ounce of cream of tartar in five gallons of boiling water; pour the solution off clear upon twenty pounds of fine honey, boil them together and remove the scum as it rises. Towards the end of the boiling, add an ounce of fine hops; about ten minutes afterwards, put the liquor into a tub to cool; when reduced to the temperature of about 60° Fahrenheit, add a slice of bread toasted and smeared over with a very little yeast; the smaller the quantity the better, for _yeast invariably spoils the flavour of wines_, and where there is a sufficiency of extractive matter in the ingredients employed, it should never be introduced. The liquor should now stand, and be stirred occasionally, till it carries a head, when it should be tunned and the cask filled up from time to time from the reserve, till the fermentation has nearly subsided. It should now be bunged down, leaving open a small peg-hole; in a few days this may also be closed, and in about twelve months the wine will be fit to bottle.

Many makers of both wine and cider have been unconsciously benefited from the acquisition of tartar by their liquor; it being a frequent practice to tun into an empty foreign wine cask, whose incrusted sides have supplied their wine or their cider with a portion of that necessary ingredient for perfect vinification.

It is a practice with some to add _spices_ to their Mead during the fermentation, such as ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, lemon-peel, &c. This is bad œconomy; a much smaller quantity will communicate the required flavour if the addition be made after the fermentation has ceased.

A _common beverage_ is sometimes made, by simply boiling the refuse honey-combs in water after extracting from them as much of the honey as will run; this liquor will not require tartar or yeast: it should be tunned as soon as cool, bunged down in three or four days, and drank in a few weeks. In some parts of Wales the refuse combs are brewed with malt, spices, &c. and the produce is called _Braggot_, a name derived from the old British words _brag_ and _gots_, the former signifying _malt_, the latter _honey-comb_.

A knowledge of the principles of fermentation will enable the wine-maker to regulate its process. Thus if a dry wine be desired, and fermentation be suspended, it may be renewed by a restoration of the separated leaven or the addition of fresh; or by agitation and a remixture of the lees. It is upon the latter principle, called "_feeding on the lees_," that some foreign wines are improved by long voyages; but this treatment, so _serviceable to Madeira and other Spanish wines_, and also to some of the French wines, _would destroy Burgundy_. If there be an excess of fermentation the scientific operator will regulate, check or suspend it, by skimming, racking, fining. If skimming and racking do not succeed, recourse must be had to _fining_, which may be effected _by isinglass_, in the proportion of about an ounce to 100 gallons. The isinglass must be beaten, for a few days, with a whisk in a small quantity of the wine, till completely attenuated. This solution must then be well stirred into the cask of wine, which in about a week will become fine and fit for being racked off. This fining is accomplished by the union of the isinglass with what is called the tannin of the wine. Fining may also be effected by _stumming_, i. e. _by burning in a close vessel containing a small part of the wine a brimstone rag_, at the rate of a dram of sulphur to thirty gallons; and when consumed, rolling the cask about for a quarter of an hour, that the wine may absorb as much as possible of the sulphuric acid gas. This being done, the cask is to be filled up with the remainder of the wine, and bunged down. In this process the sulphuric acid or its oxygen unites with the extractive matter or soluble leaven, which being thereby rendered insoluble is precipitated to the bottom, as I before observed. If wines be perfectly fermented, they do not require the addition of any brandy, as a sufficiency of spirit is generated during the process.

_The best temperature for carrying on fermentation_ is about 54° Fahrenheit. Its perfection depends in some degree upon the volume of the liquor; the larger the quantity, the longer the fermentation will continue, and the stronger and pleasanter will be the wine. There are however exceptions to this rule. The peculiar excellence of champagne would be destroyed, if its fermentation were conducted upon a large scale: it may be made successfully in a gallon measure. This wine is so managed by the makers as to ferment after bottling.

_Dry wines and fine wines_ are much more durable than any others; and those that would perish in cask, _may be preserved many years by bottling_.

These hints will, I hope, enable the makers of home-made wines to conduct the process scientifically, and to secure generally a successful issue. Cookery books and good housewives abound in receipts for wine-making, which are very often fanciful and absurd, recommending the introduction of articles which, in their very natures, counteract the production of good wine. Hence we are sometimes presented with such miserable mawkish stuff, as disgraces the name of wine, being only rendered tolerable by the brandy which has been added to it, and which in some degree covers the crudeness and insipidity of the compound, and moderates its hostility to the peace of our stomachs.

THE ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BEE.