Canaanite Spiced Wine with Honey and Myrrh
Red wine warmed with honey, cinnamon, and a resinous hint of myrrh, served warm at banquets and offered as a libation to the god — a festive and ritual drink.
Red wine warmed with honey, cinnamon, and a resinous hint of myrrh, served warm at banquets and offered as a libation to the god — a festive and ritual drink.
Raise the cup, but first pour me the first sip onto the ground: that is my libation. Take the dark wine from the hills, warm it gently, marry it with honey and the fragrant resin that caravans bring from the South. Drink slowly, for this wine loosens tongues and seals oaths. When the cup passes from hand to hand at my table, men become brothers, and the god smiles in the smoke.
- •Canaanite red wine — a pitcher (base)
- •Honey — a drizzle (sweetener)
- •Cinnamon / fragrant bark — a shard (warm spice)
- •Myrrh or terebinth resin (in very small quantity) — a trace (ritual resinous note)
- •Water — a little (dilution, as in ancient custom)
Canaanite Spiced Wine with Honey and Myrrh
Red wine warmed with honey, cinnamon, and a resinous hint of myrrh, served warm at banquets and offered as a libation to the god — a festive and ritual drink.
Why this dish? Wine flowed freely in temple banquets; a portion was poured as a libation into the libation cup before Dagon before the assembly drank. The vine thrived on the hills of Canaan.
Raise the cup, but first pour me the first sip onto the ground: that is my libation. Take the dark wine from the hills, warm it gently, marry it with honey and the fragrant resin that caravans bring from the South. Drink slowly, for this wine loosens tongues and seals oaths. When the cup passes from hand to hand at my table, men become brothers, and the god smiles in the smoke.
Ingredients (period version)
- Canaanite red wine — a pitcher (base)
- Honey — a drizzle (sweetener)
- Cinnamon / fragrant bark — a shard (warm spice)
- Myrrh or terebinth resin (in very small quantity) — a trace (ritual resinous note)
- Water — a little (dilution, as in ancient custom)
Ingredients
- Full-bodied red wine — 75 cl (base)
- Honey — 3 tbsp (sweetener)
- Cinnamon stick — 1 (warm spice)
- A drop of orange blossom water (as a substitute for myrrh) — 2-3 drops (perfumed note)
- Water — 10 cl (dilution)
Method
- Pour the wine and water into a saucepan with the honey and cinnamon stick.
- Heat gently without ever boiling, 10-15 minutes, to infuse the flavors.
- Off the heat, add 2-3 drops of orange blossom water (a modern evocation of the resinous note of ritual myrrh).
- Strain and serve warm in cups — for a non-alcoholic version, replace with dark grape juice heated the same way.
- Optional ritual gesture: symbolically pour a first drop before drinking, in the manner of the ancient libation.
How it was made : Ancient wine was often thick, resinated (for preservation), and diluted with water; it was flavored with honey and spices. Libation — pouring a portion of the drink for the deity — is a universal rite of the ancient Near East, attested in the texts of Ugarit. Myrrh and resins arrived via caravan routes from Arabia.
The contemporary twist : Served in small cups with a slice of dried orange, this "banquet wine" makes a winter mulled wine with an identity far older than Christmas markets.
Dagon · Charactorium