290 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



This compound mead ferments a considerable time, and is 

 preserved like the other. Care must be taken to rinse all 

 the new barrels with brandy before the mead is put in them. 



" To make the vinous mead, take one pound of honey to 

 three pints of water. This is the beverage of the majority 

 of the Northern people ; they call it miod. The Russians, 

 for example, compose their mead with honey, cherries, 

 strawberries, gooseberries, and mulberries ; they commence 

 the fabrication by soaking these fruits for some days in clear 

 water, to which they then add some virgin honey and a 

 piece of bread soaked in beer. The barrels are placed in a 

 room in which a heat of 18 to 25 degrees Keaumure is main- 

 tained day and night. The fermentation commences at the. 

 end of six or eight days, lasts for about six weeks, and 

 ceases spontaneously. The common people of the same 

 country make mead with honey which is not separated 

 from the wax, and with combs in which the brood still ex- 

 ists ; they beat these combs in warm water, leave the liquor 

 to subside, strain it through a bag, boil and drink it." 



Mr. Huish made an excellent mead in the following 

 manner: "To thirty pounds of honey add forty-five bottles 

 of water ; the mixture is boiled in a great copper vessel, 

 and when the liquor is reduced one half it is sufficiently 

 boiled. Put two thirds of this in a new barrel well rinsed 

 with brandy, and the other third into bottles closed with 

 fine linen or coarse muslin. If in this state the liquor is 

 tasted, it is insipid ; and, in order to render it vinous, it must 

 undergo fermentation, which imparts to it all the fumes of 

 wine, and from which brandy, etc., may be made. In 

 order to destroy more effectually the honey taste of this 

 beverage, chalk, charcoal, and the white of eggs must be 

 added in the following manner : the honey, water, and the 

 chalk are put into a copper vessel, the size of which should 

 be one third larger than the volume of the mixture, and the 

 whole must be boiled for two minutes. The charcoal is 



