Background

My cordial or spiced wine is made from port and cassia. Such blends were known as piments and were named for pigmentarii or apothecaries who of course recommended them for various medicinal purposes. The base wine, port, was well known in medieval times.
The fortification of port wine with brandy makes the alcohol content usually greater than 18 percent.
Port is blended from Touriga Nacional (usually the dominant
grape), Tinta Cao, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca and other minor grapes.

“Port, named after the city where it was first produced,
Oporto, Portugal must come from Oporto. In the same way, real
Champagne must come from the Champagne region of France.”

Madiera is a fortified wind similar to sherry and port but is made on the Madiera islands of Portugal. Madiera was referred to as malmsey in medieval times due to the grapes used to make Madiera called “Malvasia”.

Spiced wines such as Ypocras are mentioned by Chaucer in “A Merchant’s Tale” (1386)
“He drynketh Ypocras, Calree, and Vernage of spices hoote tencressen [to increase] his corage.”

Ypocras was named for Hippocrates and was thought to be a drink for saluting one’s comrades and aiding in digestion. Addition of honey, herbs and spices were often an attempt to disguise the acidity and harshness of improperly aged and stored wines.

Redaction

The primary source instructions for making my cordial are below

“ TO MAKE CINNAMON WATER - c. 1550 to 1625
Take a gallon of muskadine, malmsey, or sack & put it in A vessill yt may be close covered, & put to it into ye vessell a pound of bruised cinnamon.
Let it stand 3 dayes, & every day stir 2 or 3 times. then put it in a limbeck of glass, stoped fast. set it in a brass pot full of water,1 & put hay in ye bottome & about ye sydes. then make ye pot seeth, & let it distill in to a glass kept as close as may be. shift ye glass every houre after ye first time, for ye first will be ye strongest, & ye last will be very weak. # 289”
(From Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, ed. by Karen Hess.)
Note that malmsey is a sweet, fortified wine from Madeira. Muskadine is made from a sweet grape found in the southeast United States.

My redaction is as follows:

One Pint Spanish Port
2 oz cinnamon sticks

Scrape cinnamon stick so surface area of fresh spice is exposed. Submerge cinnamon sticks in alcohol and put in tightly closed container away from light. Store for one week. Remove from container and add sugar and honey or not (choice after tasting). This could be distilled using simple still or limbeck, but this redaction involves only the infused cordial. Store distilled cordial in air tight container away from light.

Distillation of spiced wines to produce more strong liquor was practiced once knowledge of the art of distillation became known. A limbeck or alembic, would most likely have been used (see figure 1.) but I do not have one available to me. A limbeck as used for distillation was a closely guarded secret of brewers and distillers for a long time. It is set up to more easily heat the originating liquid and capture and separate the distilled liquor from the other products.



Figure 1. A limbeck or alembic use for distillation.

Let me point out that in period, cinnamon or canel would have likely been used. I have used cassia since it was affordable and readily available for me. I used cassia sticks. For a comparison of the appearance of cassia and true cinnamon, see Figure 2.




Figure 2. Cassia (l) and Cinnamon (R)

Cassia is native to Burma and is officially known as Cinnamomum aromaticum or Cinnamomum cassia. A member of the same family as true cinnamon, it has a stronger flavor thus requiring less in to be used in recipes. Cassia is often a more appropriate choice for savory dishes, rather than sweets.

After embarking on an adventure making a cordial that is more period than other cordials I have made before and shared at events, I have to say, it was a true lark. I would have preferred to us cinnamon vs. cassia as it is a better choice as stated above for sweet concoctions but this was a good substitute due to the cost of the true cinnamon
This experience has left me eager to do more period style “brewing” and share the fruits of my labors at appropriate period events and to try a limbeck!

by Mairghread ni Stilbheard uu Coinn