Wednesday 5 May 2010

A Long Weekend of Mead


So its been a while since I blogged and after demolishing a bottle of Eglantine mead on Saturday, and a recent debate about crediting peoples works ref the history of Ethiopia, I thought I’d pontificate on a trip to Lurgashall home of my (still favoured) mead.

Then I may open a bottle of something completely different.

So I’d bought a pretty expensive bottle of Lurgashall English mead at the Hive, and I’d suggested to my sister in passing that one day we visit the meadery in the wilds of West Sussex. Over time she became keener on the idea than me, mainly I think as an excuse to bimble around southern England.

I was half thinking that we might end up at middle farm afterwards for a truly excessive mead shopping expedition. In hindsight this may have made things a tad too expensive.

So Lurgashall is a long way from most places, in the posh bit of Sussex near the Surrey border. On a drizzly day we expected the place to be deserted but must have timed our visit to hit rush hour, as there were like people there.

After several tastes, I bought the lot. Well one of each, at a price less than the hive. Oh and a bought some more of the dry as I think I’m developing a taste for more of the dryer meads. The set looked like this:
Christmas Mead
Spiced Honey Mead
Dry Honey Mead
Reserve Honey Mead
English Honey Mead

And I thought there was a Whiskey mead, but maybe I dreamt that bit.

I also bought some of the most delicious Gospel Green cider and my sister acquired some of Old Tom’s tipple (whatever the hell that is)

We demolished a bottle of the Dry that night with my dad and his partner, but I think I may save the review / notes for a different occasion. For now I’m off to the Oakdale….

Saturday 1 May 2010

Eglantine Mead


So the dullest looking mead in my wine rack, with a plain label, a quiet yellow hue and not much to say about itself. It’s been lurking there since a trip through Melton Mowbray last year, and I’ve not been inspired to drink it since.

So I visited a friend for the wont of anything to do, and over a few games we drank the mead. Well I drank most of it, and his girlfriend had a wee tipple before rushing off to work at the Underworld.

After a fairly good game of Race for the Galaxy, followed by a more in depth fantasy battle games (who’s name escapes me), a few too many sausages and quite a lot of cider I’m not sure how well I’m qualified to report back. I scribbled some notes:
Sweet, bit of a bite – almost reminiscent of a melomel
Quite a nice after taste – flavourful but not unpleasant
I appear to have a mead soaked moustache

Bitter scent, with quite a smooth sip. Quite a heady drink. Perhaps a bit sweet, and what a dull looking bottle.

So there you have it.

Ok in the search for something else to say I had a look at their website, and a few other references. This is the bit I liked:
And why "Eglantine"?.
We wanted a name which immediately evokes the best of the English countryside. This is the name of the smallest of the wild English roses found growing along the hedgerows in some parts of the countryside and flowering in late Spring and early Summer.

But in my searches I found the anglo-saxon foundation site reviewing mead, and more intriguingly another reference to Eglantine roses and mead.

The Rabbit foot meadery has been hard at work reconstructing a period recipe:
A recipe for Metheglin, a spiced mead, comes from the Closet of Sir Kenholme Digby (see bibliography )

'Take of spring water what quantity you please, and make it more than blood-warm, and dissolve honey in it till 'tis strong enough to bear an egg, the breadth of a shilling; then boil it gently near an hour, taking off the scum as it rises; then put to about nine or ten gallons, seven or eight large blades of mace, three nutmegs quartered, twenty cloves, three or four sticks of cinnamon, two or three roots of ginger, and a quarter of an ounce of Jamaica pepper; put these spices into the kettle to the honey and water, a whole lemon, with a sprig of sweet- briar and a sprig of rosemary; tie the briar and rosemary together, and when they have boiled a little while take them out and throw them away; but let your liquor stand on the spice in a clean earthen pot till the next day; then strain it into a vessel that is fit for it; put the spice in a bag, and hang it in the vessel, stop it, and at three months draw it into bottles. Be sure that 'tis fine when 'tis bottled; after 'tis bottled six weeks 'tis fit to drink.'



Spices etc.
The spices used in the recipe were common of the time and are all available today with the possible exception of Sweet Briar. One would assume that this is possibly no more than a young shoot of blackberry briar (Rubus Rosaceae) common all over Europe with similar varieties found in the US and Canada. This shoot has been know to have medicinal properties as well as a slightly astringent quality. It may also be a reference to 'rosa eglanteria' - the eglantine rose, whose young leaves smell strongly of green apples. If you can't find them you could get the same taste from Russet or Granny Smith Apple peelings.

So perhaps more by luck that judgment the Eglantine mead has tapped into an older tradition of making mead than they might imagine.