To make excellent Meathe.
To every quart of Honey, take four quarts of water. Put your water in
a clean Kettel over the fire, and with a stick take the just measure, how
high the water cometh, making a notch, where the superficies toucheth the
stick. As soon as the water is warm, put in your Honey, and let it boil,
skimming it always, till it be very clean; Then put to every Gallon of
water, one pound of the best
Blew-raisins of the Sun,
first clean picked
from the stalks, and clean washed. Let them remain in the boiling Liquor,
till they be thoroughly swollen and soft; Then take them out, and put them
into a Hair-bag, and strain all the juice and pulp and substance from them
in an Apothecaries Press; which put back into your liquor, and let it boil,
till it be consumed just to the notch you took at first, for the measure of
your water alone. Then let your Liquor run through a Hair-strainer into an
empty Woodden-fat, which must stand endwise, with the head of the upper end
out; and there let it remain till the next day, that the liquor be quite
cold. Then Tun it up into a good Barrel, not filled quite full, but within
three or four fingers breadth; (where
Sack hath been, is the best) and let
the bung remain open for six weeks with a double bolter-cloth lying on it,
to keep out any foulness from falling in. Then stop it up close, and drink
not of it till after nine months.
This Meathe is singularly good for a Consumption, Stone, Gravel,
Weak-fight, and many more things. A Chief Burgomaster of Antwerp, used for
many uears to drink no other drink but this; at Meals and all times, even
for pledging of healths. And though He were an old man, he was of
extraordinary vigor every way, and had every year a Child, had always a
great appetite, and good digestion; and yet was not fat.
Recipes from The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir
Kenelme Digbie Kt Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of
Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, &c. together with Excellent Directions for
Cookery: As also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c. First
edition, London, 1669.
Transcribed by Joyce Miller <jmiller@genome.wi.mit.edu>