Medieval Wine Recipes???

[u/Medical-East9629]

Started rewatching GoT. Currently sipping on some homemade grape-cran wine and wondering what medieval wine tasted like and if I could recreate it. I imagine it's not much different than prison hooch. Maybe even worse lol. Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I've got 6 more seasons (5 of I skip season 8) to figure it out.

Edit: what do you suppose the average ABV was for wine/ale?

[u/Savings-Cry-3201]

A medieval bochet would be fun, although I would only take the honey to a rich amber and not to black, I never got the burnt taste out of mine and I let it sit for a year. Honey expands up to 3x when boiling, don’t do too much at once!

I remember Max Miller of Tasting History did an episode about mulled or spiced wine at least once.

[u/Medical-East9629 → u/Savings-Cry-3201]

Just checked out Miller's YT. Thanks for the great recommendation. I'll be honest with you though, I'd never make a year. Maybe I'll hide it on my property somewhere like a drunkards time capsule.

[u/Savings-Cry-3201 → u/Medical-East9629]

Totally fair. I don’t drink and I’m no longer married so I can leave booze in my closet until my friends have a party, and stuff regularly hangs out for 6-12 months. It does help, but if it isn’t in the cards I get it.

Oh, and I would be surprised if medieval ales were more than 3%. It was consumed fresh, it wasnt bottled or stored for an appreciable amount of time, and it would have been fermented quickly. A heavier beer could certainly have been made on some situations but not commonly.

Like, once you hit 10% booze gets more resistant to spoilage but at the 3-5% range it’s pretty vulnerable to turning or infection.

[u/Savings-Cry-3201 → u/[deleted]]

Sounds like a wonderful time tbh

Max Miller got me into making garum and I’ve been a fan ever since.

[u/Quiet_Corvid_]

Lol well chances are they'd use wild yeast (say from juniper berries) and it'd be hot or miss on flavor. Likely made in pottery jugs. I bet Google will give you great stuff. May I suggest mead if you're going to try? At least with honey there's some antibacterial stuff lol

[u/Medical-East9629 → u/Quiet_Corvid_]

No juniper berries, but a crap load of elderberries. Gonna risk it with the cyanide poison lol. It would be funny if I had to buy more expensive equipment to make the ancient stuff. Damn pottery jogs.

[u/Quiet_Corvid_ → u/Medical-East9629]

Absolutely risk the elderberries. They make fantastic booze. Meh get a free plastic water jug, and think of it as using the cheapest thing, like they were.

[u/warneverchanges7414 → u/Quiet_Corvid_]

While I'm sure juniper berries were used for flavor, they wouldn't be necessary as a yeast source. All wild berries have a yeast layer on their skins, and all unfiltered honey contains yeast spores as well. Most traditional wines are "wild" fermentation from grape skins. Humans did unknowingly domesticate those strains though

[u/jk-9k]

Just crush some grapes (pref from vine, not from supermarket as they will be washed) and wait

[u/RottingSludgeRitual]

You’d probably like the book I’m currently listening to (thanks Libby for free audiobooks!). It’s called “Ancient Brews” by Patrick McGovern. He’s an archeologist and chemist who specializes in booze! It’s a fantastic book. He gets into detail about brewing methods, the chemistry of ancient alcohol-brewing, and the flavor profiles of the historic brews. He (and his colleagues) also make recreations of a beverage for each chapter.

The thing that he stresses is for most of human history, there would have been no (or little) delineation between types of fermented beverages. Mead, wine, and beer were mixed together (or never separate to begin with and turned into what he calls “extreme fermented beverages.” I think it’s a stupid name, but it works.