Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


The object of these various mixtures was naturally to obtain
high-flavoured beers, which became so much in fashion, that to describe
the want of merit of persons, or the lack of value in anything, no simile
was more common than to compare them to "small beer." Nevertheless, more
delicate and less blunted palates were to be found which could appreciate
beer sweetened simply with honey, or scented with ambergris or
raspberries. It is possible, however, that these compositions refer to
mixtures in which beer, the produce of fermented grain, was confounded
with hydromel, or fermented honey. Both these primitive drinks claim an
origin equally remote, which is buried in the most distant periods of
history, and they have been used in all parts of the world, being
mentioned in the oldest historical records, in the Bible, the Edda, and in
the sacred books of India. In the thirteenth century, hydromel, which then
bore the name of _borgerafre, borgeraste_, or _bochet_, was composed of
one part of honey to twelve parts of water, scented with herbs, and
allowed to ferment for a month or six weeks. This beverage, which in the
customs and statutes of the order of Cluny is termed _potus dulcissimus_
(the sweetest beverage), and which must have been both agreeable in taste
and smell, was specially appreciated by the monks, who feasted on it on
the great anniversaries of the Church. Besides this, an inferior quality
of _bochet_ was made for the consumption of the lower orders and peasants,
out of the honeycomb after the honey had been drained away, or with the
scum which rose during the fermentation of the better qualities.

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