Beverage of the issue de table
Hypocras au vin de Guyenne
DrinkDocumented🍯 🌶️facile20 min (+ infusion overnight)
A red Bordeaux wine infused with cinnamon, ginger, and clove, sweetened with honey and filtered until clear. Aromatic and warming, it was served at the end of the meal with sweets.
Beverage of the issue de table
A red Bordeaux wine infused with cinnamon, ginger, and clove, sweetened with honey and filtered until clear. Aromatic and warming, it was served at the end of the meal with sweets.
When leaving the table, as the mind lingers on the pleasure of conversation, nothing is better than a good hypocras. I take wine from our hillsides, add crushed cinnamon, ginger, and clove, and honey to sweeten it. Let the spices infuse, then strain and re-strain through the cloth bag until it is clear as ruby. Serve it cool to your friends: you will see how much easier words become and how much more open the heart.
Ingredients
- •Red wine from Guyenne — a pitcher (base)
- •Cinnamon — a stick (master spice)
- •Ginger — a little, grated (warming spice)
- •Clove — a few cloves (spice)
- •Honey — to taste (sweetness)
- •Grains of paradise or long pepper — a pinch (fine spice)
How it was made : Hypocras takes its name from the "Hippocrates sleeve," the conical cloth bag used to filter it. Highly prized from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, it was drunk at the end of the meal. Nostradamus gives a detailed recipe in his 1555 treatise on preserves, during La Boétie's own lifetime.
Sources : Nostradamus, Excellent & moult utile opuscule à touts necessaire qui desirent avoir cognoissance de plusieurs exquises receptes, 1555