December 10, 2017

Mulled wine is a fine Yule drink for sure, but if you want to try out something else, you could make some Yule mead. In my part of the woods, mead is something we usually drink during the spring, especially to celebrate the May Day. It is fairly easy to make, and usually, the mead has a very low alcohol content, so it is safe for smaller hobbits too. Here is a recipe I found and will try out this Yule. I translated it into English from a Finnish recipe you can find here.


Yule Mead

1 orange
1 lemon
150 g fresh ginger
5 litres water (1.3 gallons)
2 cinnamon sticks
approx. 30 dried cloves
500 g brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon fresh (compressed) yeast
(raisins)

Wash the orange and lemon with water, but leave them unpeeled. Cut them into slices. Cut the unpeeled ginger into thin flakes. Pour the water into a pot and bring to a boil. Once it boils, take the pot from the stove. Add all the ingredients to the water except the yeast. Stir until the sugar has melted. Cover the pot and wait until the water has cooled to lukewarm. Now, it is safe to add the small piece of yeast to the liquid, so do it! Stir.

Cover the pot and let the mead sit in room temperature for about 12 hours. Strain the spices and the fruit from the mead. Pour the mead into bottles and seal them. Optionally, you can put a couple of raisins into the bottles before sealing them. This will make it easier to know when the mead is ready for drinking.

Refrigerate the mead. In three days or so, it should be ready for drinking (if you added raisins, the mead should be ready for drinking when the raisins float at the top of the bottles).