is to say, that a little about a
fingers breadth of the neck be empty, between the superficies of the
Liquor, and the bottom of the stopple) and then stop them up and tye them,
or else it will drive out the Corks. Within a fortnight you may drink of
it. It will keep five or six weeks.

ALE WITH HONEY

Sir Thomas Gower makes his pleasant and wholesom drink of Ale and Honey
thus. Take fourty Gallons of small Ale, and five Gallons of Honey. When the
Ale is ready to Tun, and is still warm, take out ten Gallons of it; which,
whiles it is hot, mingle with it the five Gallons of Honey, stirring it
exceeding well with a clean arm till they be perfectly incorporated. Then
cover it, and let it cool and stand still. At the same time you begin to
dissolve the honey in this parcel, you take the other of thirty Gallons
also warm, and Tun it up with barm, and put it into a vessel capable to
hold all the whole quantity of Ale and Honey, and let it work there; and
because the vessel will be so far from being full, that the gross foulness
of the Ale cannot work over, make holes in the sides of the Barrel even
with the superficies of the Liquor in it, out of which the gross feculence
may purge; and these holes must be fast shut, when you put in the rest of
the Ale with the Honey: which you must do, when you see the strong working
of the other is over; and that it works but gently, which may be after two
or three or four days, according to the warmth of the season. You must warm
your solution of honey, when you put it in, to be as warm as Ale, when you
Tun it; and then it will set the whole a working a fresh, and casting out
more foulness; which it would do too violently, if you put it in at the
first of the Tunning it. It is not amiss that some feculence lie thick upon
the Ale, and work not all out; for that will keep in the spirits. After
you have dissolved the honey in the Ale, you must boil it a little to skim
it; but skim it not, till it have stood a while from the fire to cool; else
you will skim away much of the Honey, which will still rise as long as it
boileth. If you will not make so great a quantity at a time, do it in less
in the same proportions. He makes it about Michaelmas for Lent.

When strong Beer groweth too hard, and flat for want of Spirits, take four
or five Gallons of it out of a Hogshead, and boil five pounds of honey in
it, and skim it, and put it warm into the Beer; and after it hath done
working, stop it up cl