braciatrix

I have been wanting to make a braggot since I first heard about them years ago. And now seemed like a good time to give it a go. I first thought of making one using a modern commercial beer, but then thought it might be better to use a medieval ale. So what I ended […]

Historical beer cooking is back! And right out of the gate, I decided to make a medieval English braggot, which is not mixing ale with mead but is, in fact, mixing ale with honey, and then also maybe some other booze once it’s done. More on that in the next post. I wasn’t sure whether […]

Happy Christmas Eve to all who celebrate, and a Good Yule and Merry Solstice. So continuing on my current kick of making all the hot ale drinks I can find, for this week’s task, I opted to make a posset. Why a posset this week you wonder? Well, this time of year signals the return […]

Wassailing. The name appears often this time of year, spoken in songs, or referenced in stories. But what exactly is it and where did it come from? There are a lot of good articles online about its history, but in case you aren’t familiar, here is a brief overview: According to the UK National Trust, […]

I made butter beer! No, not the wizard version, but the real late 16th and early 17th-century stuff made with sugar, warming spices, eggs, and, you guessed it, butter. It has been absolutely freezing this week and so the thoughts of a hot beverage to ward off the chill sounded like an excellent idea. Also, […]

I adore ketchup; love the stuff, put it on so very many things. Eggs, grilled cheese, burgers, nearly everything can be improved with a little bit of the red sauce. However, as big of a fan as I am of tomato ketchup, I had never tried, nor even heard of, walnut ketchup, which apparently is […]

On the back of last week’s Cock-ale, I wanted to make something I was a wee bit more sure about. This dish, Soppes Dorre, appears throughout medieval and early modern books about cooking. There are at least 10 recipes I could find easily in my search and I am going to prepare two of them […]

Elynour Rummyng, a 16th-century fictional alewife, mixed hen’s droppings with ale to create a potion designed to make the drinker appear two, or more, years younger. In this week’s historical beer cooking, we recreate her recipe. Well kinda. I’m not particularly interested in acquiring food poisoning. But, I did think it would be fun to do […]