clarry

chained_bear commented on the word clarry

"This basic template (recipe in comment on hippocras) admitted almost infinite variation. Hippocras could also be made with cloves and nutmeg; another variant called for mace and cardamom. Clarry was much the same as hippocras, the chief difference (though not necessarily) being the use of honey in place of sugar."

--Jack Turner, _Spice: The History of a Temptation_ (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 114

December 2, 2016

chained_bear commented on the word clarry

"With the advent of the technology of the bottle and cork in the sixteenth century, the need for spices in wine was abruptly less pressing. Winemaking techniques and the quality of the end result improved. Yet of all of spices' uses in the medieval world, spiced wines were perhaps the most enduring, long outlansting the Middle Ages. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) enjoyed an occasional glass of hippocras; it even gets a mention in Der Rosenkavalier. Neither clarry nor hippocras has ever quite disappeared, ultimately evolving into the vermouth, glögg, and mulled wine of today--still one of the best ways of dealing with a red on the turn, short of pouring it down the sink.

"Spiced ale, on the other hand, has gone the way of the crossbow and the codpiece. In the Middle Ages, ale really was good for you--comparatively speaking. It was certainly better than the available water, an observation traditionally credited to Saint Arnulphus, bishop of Soissons and abbot of the Benedictine foundation of Oudenbourg, who died in 1087. Arnulphus is the patron saint of brewers, an acknowledgement of his realization that heavy ale drinkers were less afflicted by epidemics than were the rest of the population. Particularly in Europe's densely crowded towns, with their poor drainage and rudimentary public hygiene, untreated water was a daily reality and an extremely effective vector of infection. Though the effect of contaminated water was only dimly appreciated, the medical theory of the day added intellectual respectability to the wariness of water, classing it as wet and cooling and therefore potentially inimical to the body's natural balance of moderate warmth and moisture.... Given that the ale drinker was exposed to fewer microbiological nasties, Arnulphus's bias against water made perfect sense. The upshot was that ale was consumed in prodigious quantities."

--Jack Turner, _Spice: The History of a Temptation_ (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 116-117

December 2, 2016