Eliza Knight (Guest Post & Giveaway)

Morning lovelies! Joining us today is the author of A Lady's Charade, Eliza Knight, with a wonderful guest post and giveaway! You can see Lexy's review of A Lady's Charade *HERE*

Medieval Beverages

I really do enjoy curling up with a glass of pinot noir (Mark West is my wine of choice at the moment!) and reading a good book.  Which of course got me to thinking, what sort of drinks did they have back in medieval times?

I got to wine festivals several times throughout the year. Lucky for me in my town there are several wineries! One of which has a famous Mead, they sell to the Renaissance Festival, I also frequent… Yum!

So back to what sort of drinks they had in medieval times…

Water – if water was boiled it could be purified, but people rarely drank it and when they did it wasn’t always boiled first. Water had too much bacteria in it. You know what went into the water? Shudder. Water ways were treated as a sewage of sorts. Excrement, trash, carcasses…

Milk – Milk from animals was for children only. Adults didn’t drink it—although they did enjoy almond milk. A milk-cow was considered a prized possession. Especially if the family was starving and the mother couldn’t nurse her baby. Those cows saved a lot of babies from starvation. Milk was also provided by goats.

Ale – was made from grains and very thick. Think beer but not strained enough. Often they would drink watered down ale.

Wine – the poor had no wine. It was very expensive. The middle class had watered down local wine, and those with money generally had the good stuff. In England, for the nobility, wine was often imported from France or Italy. Funny that today, the French and Italian wines are still the top of the line. 

Caudell – was wine or ale that was beaten with raw eggs to make a frothy beverage. I wonder if the guys who were trying to pump up their muscles devoured this drink often?

Cider – made from apples, but I wouldn’t serve it to your children today although children in the medieval era often drank watered down fermented—alcoholic—beverages, because it was safer. It was usually mixed with mead or some other alcoholic beverage.

Mead – is an alcoholic beverage made from honey and grains. It was often flavored with hops to give it that bitter beer flavor.

Perry or Poire – pear juice…but again, not for modern kiddies. It’s fermented, and similar to the cider.

Spiced wine – also known as Clarey or Claret. It was wine spiced with cinnamon or honey, and other spices.

Distillates – these are alcoholic beverages made from grains, and very strong. Think of liquor. (Whiskey was made quite a bit in Scotland and Ireland!)

Murrey – blackberry wine

Prunelle – juice of wild plums and berries, fermented into a wine or liqueur

Melomel – this is mead that contains fruit, like berries.

Methegin – was a type of mead made with spices.

Hippocras – mix of wine and spices

By the way, in medieval times it was okay to drink alcohol with breakfast. Do you think I could get away with it, if I said I was doing it for research? How did they function? Then again, if you were constantly drinking alcohol, I suppose you built up quite a tolerance. It is said that Queen Elizabeth I (Reigned 1558-1603) loved her cordials—a spiced liquor.


What would be your beverage of choice if you lived in the medieval era?  Leave a comment for your chance to win an ebook copy of my new medieval novel, A LADY’S CHARADE.

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Eliza Knight is the multi-published author of sizzling historical romance and erotic romance. While not reading, writing or researching for her latest book, she chases after her three children. In her spare time (if there is such a thing…) she likes daydreaming, wine-tasting, traveling, hiking, staring at the stars, watching movies, shopping and visiting with family and friends. She lives atop a small mountain, and enjoys cold winter nights when she can curl up in front of a roaring fire with her own knight in shining armor. Visit Eliza at www.elizaknight.com or her historical blog, History Undressed, which was recently mentioned in a feature article in The Wall Street Journal. www.historyundressed.blogspot.com

NEW Medieval Romance from Eliza… A LADY’S CHARADE

From across a field of battle, English knight, Alexander, Lord Hardwyck, spots the object of his desire--and his conquest, Scottish traitor Lady Chloe.

Her lies could be her undoing…

Abandoned across the border and disguised for her safety, Chloe realizes the man who besieged her home in Scotland has now become her savior in England. Her life in danger, she vows to keep her identity secret, lest she suffer his wrath, for he wants her dead. 

Or love could claim them both and unravel two countries in the process…

Alexander suspects Chloe is not who she says she is and has declared war on the angelic vixen who's laid claim to his heart. A fierce battle of the minds it will be, for once the truth is revealed they will both have to choose between love and duty.

Available now in both Ebook and Trade Paperback. To read an excerpt visit: http://elizaknight.com/ALadysCharade.aspx

~*GIVEAWAY*~

As Eliza mentioned above, she is giving away one digital copy of A Lady's Charade to one lucky reader, to enter just leave a comment answering her question at the end of her post and fill out the reafflecopter below!