HYDROMELI, OR MELICRATON

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

Fit vinum et ex aqua ac melle tantum. quinquennio ad hoc servari caelestem iubent. alii prudentiores statim ad tertias partes decocunt et tertiam veteris mellis adiciunt, dein XL diebus canis ortu in sole habent. alii diffusa ita decimo die obturant. hoc vocatur hydromeli et vetustate saporem vini adsequitur, nusquam laudatius quam in Phrygia. quin et acetum melle temperabatur: adeo nihil intemptatum vitae fuit. oxymeli hoc vocarunt, mellis decem libris, aceti veteris heminis quinque, salis marini libra, aquae pluviae sextariis quinque suffervefactis deciens, mox elutriatis atque ita inveteratis. omnia ab Themisone summo auctore damnata. et Hercules coactus usus eorum videri potest, nisi si quis naturae opus esse credit aromatiten et ex unguentis vina conposita aut ut biberentur genuisse eam frutices. ita sunt cognitu iucunda sollertiae humanae nomine omnia exquirentis. nihil quidem ex iis anno durare, praeterquam quae vetustate ipsa fieri diximus, et plura ne tricenis quidem diebus, non erit dubium.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

There is a wine also made solely of honey and water. For this purpose it is recommended that rain-water should be kept for a period of five years. Those who shew greater skill, content themselves with taking the water just after it has fallen, and boiling it down to one third, to which they then add one third in quantity of old honey, and keep the mixture exposed to the rays of a hot sun for forty days after the rising of the Dog-star; others, however, rack it off in the course of ten days, and tightly cork the vessels in which it is kept. This beverage is known as “hydromeli,” and with age acquires the flavour of wine. It is nowhere more highly esteemed than in Phrygia.

Vinegar even has been mixed with honey; nothing, in fact, has been left untried by man. To this mixture the name of oxymeli has been given; it is compounded of ten pounds of honey, five semi-sextarii of old vinegar, one pound of sea-salt, and five sextarii of rain-water. This is boiled gently till the mixture has bubbled in the pot some ten times, after which it is drawn off, and kept till it is old; all these wines, however, are condemned by Themison, an author of high authority. And really, by Hercules! the use of them does appear to be somewhat forced, unless, indeed, we are ready to maintain that these aromatic wines are so many compounds taught us by Nature, as well as those that are manufactured of perfumes, or that shrubs and plants have been generated only for the purpose of being swallowed in drink. However, all these particulars, when known, are curious and interesting, and show how successfully the human intellect has pried into every secret.

None of these wines, however, will keep beyond a year, with the sole exception of those which we have spoken of as requiring age; many of these, indeed, there can be no doubt, do not improve after being kept so little as thirty days.