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Drink

Mead

Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water, here flavoured with hops, coriander, citrus rinds and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mead

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the honey mixture

  1. Boil the water until hot.

  2. Stir in the honey and let it boil for half an hour.

  3. Sew the hops in a muslin bag and the coriander-seed with the orange and lemon rinds in another bag.

  4. Add both bags to the boiling mixture.

  5. Skim off any scum that rises.

  6. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

Ferment and age

  1. Transfer it to a cask and add the brandy.

  2. Lightly bung the cask until fermentation is complete, then seal it tightly.

  3. Let it age for 9 to 10 months before using.

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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Coriander + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together674 recipes

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

  4. Honey + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,068 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and the main body of the mead.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the honey's sweetness.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and helps stabilise the finished mead.

The step that matters

Lightly bung the cask during fermentation. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide, and a tightly sealed cask can build pressure or burst. A loose bung lets gas escape while air is kept out, and sealing only after fermentation finishes protects the wine from spoilage.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (honey, hops, orange, lemon, brandy):

  1. Gingerfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, hops, orange, lemon, brandy. 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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