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.

Friary Vitners Spiced Mead

It’s a hot summery day, so I’m not sure this is the mead for the weather but I have a taste for something new, and their traditional mead was pleasant.

A very sweet smell with a strong presence of cinnamon? This promises to be akin to a mulled wine, and perhaps I’ll heat some later.

A dark rich colour poured from the bottle. It’s been a while since I tried a new mead so I’m looking forward to this.

A smooth sweet taste, the spices aren’t initially recognizable until the after taste kicks in, and it’s a very pleasant mix of spices. Equally its too hot to drink this without ice so:

As it cools the spices seem to become more full bodied. This is very nice indeed and reminiscent of something I can’t quite place, probably a Christmas punch?

All in as my first Metheglin, it’s a far better experience than the Blackberry Melomel from Afon Mel

As the mead reaches a properly chilled temperature, the taste seems to grow on me more, and beckons a very plesant evening to come.

Six Patterns of Mead

I’m still at the beginning of this quest, and have yet to do much more than sip at the varieties of British Meads. However there is such an abundance of information on the wicked web I’d like to clarify the varieties of Mead as I understand them.

There are muddied divisions between national traditions and names, and the patterns of making the Mead itself. The patterns include

1) Traditional or plain mead
A Mead brewed with honey and water, and little else. Varieties include:

• Great Mead – brewed to be aged before drinking (sometimes Old Mead)
• Short Mead – a more effervescent variety, brewed to be drunk quickly
• Hydromel (also Aquamiel, Idromele and similar and perhaps Berz (Ethopian) - A lighter low alcohol mead, presumably with more water involved so also akin to the Polish Czwórniak and Półtorak varieties
• Sack Mead – a very sweet mead with excessive amounts of honey
• Show Mead – a modern invention? of honey & water with nothing added relying on artificial yeasts and enzymes.
• Bochet – burnt Sack Mead
• Dębniaki - fermented in oak barrels for a specific taste (Polish)
• Thalassiome – mixed with seawater (more of a medicine - ref Pliny)
• Lipce – only uses honey collected in July (Polish/Lithuanian)

2) Braggot (also Bracket, Brackett or Bragawad, maybe also Miodomel)
A Mead brewed with honey and hops, or honey and malt, or sometimes all three. One could argue that Tej (Ethopia) is almost a Braggot, as a traditional mead fermented with Gesho instead of hops. At some points Braggots evolve into ale, and perhaps honey ales deserve some recognition here. Varieties include:

• Stakliškės - lime, juniper berries herbs & hops (Lithuanian)
• Trakai – lime, juniper berries acorns & hops (Lithuanian)

3) Melomel
A Mead brewed with honey and fruit juices. Varieties include

• Cyser – apple juice
• Pyment (also pyment claree)– grape juice. If white grapes sometimes known as a ‘white mead’
• Morta (also Mora)– mulberries
• Omphacomal – verjuice (unripe grapes)
• Perry – pears (although there is a boundary with pear cider somewhere)
• Black meads (also Kurpiowski) – blackcurrants
• Maliniaki – rasberries (Polish)
• Wiśniaki (also Podczaszy) – cherries (Polish)
• Sima – lemons (Finnish)
• Apis? – rowanberries (Polish)
• Bernardyński – chokeberries (Polish)
• Stolnik – plum stum (Polish)
• Jadwiga – raspberries (Polish)
• Lubelski – wild forest fruits (Polish)
• Bočių – juniper berries (Lithuanian)

4) Metheglin
A traditional mead with added herbs and/or spices. Common additives include Ginger, Tea, Orange peel, Nutmeg, Corriander, Cinnamon, Cloves, Vanilla, Rosemary. Varieties include:

• Capsicumel (Chile peppers)
• Gverc (Croatian)
• Pitarrilla (Mayan, Balche tree bark)
• Rhodomel (Rose hips & petals or Rose Attar)
• Trójniak Piastowski – alpine herbs (Polish)
• Hippocras – a spiced Melomel or, according to some,
simply a wine with added honey and spices

5) Undefined (maybe cocktails)
There is a pattern of making, or serving Mead, mixed with another alcoholic beverage, often wine. One interpretation is that this makes such Meads a Melomel. Wine being a fruit (grape) juice. Sometimes this may include alcoholic drinks with honey added, again especially wine. To me there is a clear difference between fermenting honey and fruit juices together as opposed to adding in pre-fermented fruit juice after the honey fermentation has finished. Be it wine, cider, or even a vinegar. Th Polish / Lithuanian meads seem to rely on such a process. So perhaps a question to a Mead maker or some in depth taste testing ( a better option).

Of more concerns that the cheaper Meads I have tasted may be little more than white wines with added honey. Harvest Gold has been described as ‘a classic interpretation of traditional mead’ which sounds like not mead to me. Varieties include

• Pyment – added wine (as above)
• Mulsum – added high strength (fortified?) wine (Roman)
• Oxymel – added wine vinegar (more of a medicine)

6) Distilled Meads
At some point it became possible to distill Mead in the same method as one produces Brandies, whether from wine or cider. One could easily argue that we are now in the realms of liquors and not Meads. Varieties include:

• Krupnik - (Polish)
• Suktinis (Lithuanian)
• Šventinė (Lithuanian)
• Vilnius (Lithuanian)
• Trys karaliai (Lithuanian)
• Žalgiris (Lithuanian)
• Stakliškių pipirinė (Lithuanian)

And more undoubtedly exist.