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Laura Angotti has been brewing for 25 years, focusing on mead and its history. Her current focus is finding, collecting, and disseminating historical information on old brewing practices. Her interest is the period before 1700, focusing on the 14th through 16th centuries.My Books
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Rosemary in Historical Mead Recipes
The fourth most common ingredient in historical mead recipes is rosemary. It is the most common herb, and is more than 50% more common than the next herb on the list. Rosemary is used as the only flavor addition in … Continue reading
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Cinnamon in Historical Mead Recipes
Continuing common historical mead ingredients. The top two ingredients in historical meads, ginger and cloves, are ahead of the third, cinnamon, by a significant margin. Cinnamon is common across all periods, but in pre-1600 recipes, cinnamon is actually the number … Continue reading
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Cloves in Historical Meads
Continuing the discussion of mead flavoring ingredients. Today’s subject is the second most common addition in historical mead recipes, cloves. There is little opportunity for confusion in what cloves are, or what form they are used in. Flower buds of … Continue reading
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Mead Ingredients – Ginger
Starting my 2020 topic of flavorings used in historical mead recipes. Ginger is the most common added flavor in historical mead recipes. Almost 1/3 of all cataloged recipes use ginger as an additive. For recipes from the mid-17th century to … Continue reading
Historical <-> Modern Techniques
On the scientific basis of historical mead making techniques. One of the topics I’ve become quite interested in, partly because it appeals to the scientific side of my though processes, and partly because I think a lot about how my … Continue reading
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Historical Mead Styles
Hello, its been a while. Travel and other factors have conspired to provide me an extremely busy life outside of historical drinks. To make up for it, I wanted to provide an illustration from the presentation I am preparing for … Continue reading
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London Research Summary
Museum of London – 17th Century table I had a good trip to London. Final count 74 manuscripts reviewed, and over 130 recipes found in those manuscripts (the number will rise slightly as I process them and catalog the variants … Continue reading
London Research
London research is going well. Here is the cellar at Hampton court palace, a 16th century residence actually built by Cardinal Wolsey, but co-opted by Henry VIII. I visited last weekend, and also very much enjoyed looking at the palace … Continue reading
New York City
The picture today is of a 6-7th century glass drinking vessel in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York. It is identified as Langobardic (the Lombards were a Germanic people in northern Italy in that time period). … Continue reading
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Mead Musings – The Recipe Catalog
I have been remiss in updating here, a situation I intend to correct over the next few days. But starting with my newest musings. My mead recipe catalog embodies the thousands of hours I have spent on my quest. Catalog … Continue reading
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