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Another Way to Make Mead

A fermented honey and water beverage flavored with cinnamon, cardamom, Jamaica pepper, ginger, coriander seed, orris-root, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Another Way to Make Mead

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Combine honey and water in a large pot, bring to a boil, and skim off any foam.

  2. Add cinnamon, cardamom, Jamaica pepper, ginger, coriander seed, orris-root, and isinglass; boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then stir in the yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. The next day, strain the mixture through a cloth into a cask.

  2. Let it ferment for about 10 days.

  3. After two weeks, bottle the mead and seal the corks.

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 turns into alcohol, and most of the sweetness.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Ginger
Adds a sharp, warming aroma and flavour to the finished mead.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma and flavour.
Isinglass
Clarifies the mead by helping suspended particles settle out.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must cool to a warm but safe temperature before the yeast is stirred in. Adding it to hot liquid can stop fermentation before it starts.

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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