Brews and potions: rosemary wine

Ha ha, somebody likes it! That makes three to one, so there, larians!

As I recently posted to cafe_de_sorcier, I have been trying to make rosemary wine, because I love rosemary, and because its folklore associations with concentration ('rosemary for remembrance')and toasting the gods make it a perfect brew for certain kinds of pagan doodah.

Now, being a lazy wazzock, I created an infusion of rosemary in white wine rather than start from scratch, and I tested it on myself and larians, whose wince and puckered mouth made it clear that more work was needed. So I added sugar, and left it. Do you know, I think the added sugar makes it more potent? Certainly it becomes eminently drinkable, despite larians description of it as 'that horrible booze.' Some people have no respect for the bevvies of yesteryear. My next attempt will include borage flowers, the other traditional ingredient of rosemary wine. Borage flowers have quite a reputation:

'Those of our time do use the flowers in sallads to exhilerate and make the mind glad. There be also many things made of these used everywhere for the comfort of the heart, for the driving away of sorrow and increasing the joy of the minde. The leaves and floures of Borage put into wine make men and women glad and merry and drive away all sadnesse, dulnesse and melancholy, as Corides and Pliny affirme. Syrup made of the floures of Borage comforteth the heart, purgeth melancholy and quieteth the phrenticke and lunaticke person. The leaves eaten raw ingender good bloud, especially in those that have been lately sicke.'

- The Herbal by John Gerard, 1633

Personally I think they're just included because the blue flowers are so pretty. On the whole, I am pleased with this first attempt. There's some left; I might take it with me when I go to see my accountant. After we've discussed my tax return, she may well need it.

Perceptions of a fool

This was always going to be an interesting quiz for me to take. I thank thomryng for it.

( Read more... )

Well, quite. All that horrific rubbish about matter being corrupt...Let me tell you about an experience I may have had, had I chosen to take a tab some years ago on Halloween; determined that I was the ultimate screw-up and downright bloody evil, I decided to rip down all my shields and go seeking the inherent rottenness locked in the core of my soul. 'Bad Trip of the Universe!' I roared, 'Here I come!' And I threw open all the windows on a stormy night, ready to face thehorrorthehorror. I frowned at the rust black clouds and tried to see the face of the evil one there, and all that came to my mind were pantomime pictures, comedic sad-faced goats with badly drawn horns. When I tried to see angels, they were there too, but more convincing, cos I 'felt' them better. And when I said, 'Now be clouds,' they were all just clouds. There was nothing to fear except the bats in my belfry, stories to be invented, fear created and designed for no other reason than to be entertaining, sometimes taken too seriously.

Swooning on the bed, I observed a beautiful universe, wind like music you can touch, and trees, and lights as the night marched down the road with all or none of the unseelie behind it. 'Matter is Innocent!' I yelled, just before I passed out, a naked idiot on the floor, 'The Universe is Innocent!'

And let me assure you, tab or no tab, so it is. Check it out for yourself if you don't believe me.


PS. I woke up with what the doctor later diagnosed as pneumonia. The universe may be innocent but in England on a late October night, it's also bloody freezing.

PPS. Aren't you glad I'm finally writing about something that isn't food?