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Drink

Vinous Mead

A fermented beverage made from water, honey, spices, and yeast, aged for a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,299 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Vinous Mead

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil water and honey for 15 minutes.

  2. Skim the mixture and let it cool.

  3. Pour it into a cask with crude tartar.

  4. Reserve some liquid for topping up the cask.

Ferment and store

  1. Expose the cask to sunlight or place it near a fire to encourage fermentation.

  2. After 7-8 days, fill the cask from the reserved liquid when froth appears.

  3. When fermentation stops, seal the cask and store it in a cellar.

  4. Bottle the mead after 12 months.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cardamom + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cardamom + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides the fermentable sugar that yeast converts to alcohol, and the body of the mead.
Yeast
Converts the sugars in the honey and water into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Crude tartar
Adds acidity, which supports a clean fermentation and a bright, tart flavour.

The step that matters

Topping up the cask from the reserved liquid. Fermentation pushes foam and liquid out of the vessel, so the cask drops below full. Topping up with reserved liquid keeps air out of the surface, which limits oxidation and spoilage while the mead is actively working.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, ginger):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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