Testament," a whimsical production of the fifteenth
century, Tent and Valencia wines are mentioned, with wine of Languedoc
and Orleans. But perhaps it will be best to cite the passage:--

"I trow there shall be an honest fellowship, save first shall they of
ale have new backbones. With strong ale brewed in vats and in tuns;
Ping, Drangollie, and the Draget fine, Mead, Mattebru, and the
Metheling. Red wine, the claret and the white, with Tent and Alicant,
in whom I delight. Wine of Languedoc and of Orleans thereto: Single
beer, and other that is double: Spruce beer, and the beer of Hamburgh:
Malmsey, Tires, and Romany."

But some of the varieties are hidden under obscure names. We recognise
Muscadel, Rhine wine, Bastard, Hippocras, however. On the 10th of
December, 1497, Piers Barber received six shillings and eight pence,
according to the "Privy Purse Expences of Henry VII.," "for spice for
ypocras."

Metheglin and beer of some kind appear to be the most ancient liquors
of which there are any vestiges among the Britons. Ferguson, in his
Essay "On the Formation of the Palate," states that they are described
by a Greek traveller, who visited the south of Britain in the fourth
century B.C. This informant describes metheglin as composed of wheat
and honey (of course mixed with water), and the beer as being of
sufficient strength to injure the nerves and cause head-ache.

Worlidge, in his "Vinetum Britannicum," 1676, gives us receipts for
metheglin and birch wine. Breton, in his "Fantasticks," 1626, under
January, recommends a draught of ale and wormwood wine mixed in
a morning to comfort the heart, scour the maw, and fulfil other
beneficial offices.

The English beer of by-gone times underwent many vicissitudes, and it
was long before our ancestors conquered their dislike to the bitter
hop, after having been accustomed to a thick, sweet liquor of which
the modern Kentish ale is in some measure a survival. Beer was made
from a variety of grain; oats were most commonly employed. In France,
they resorted even to vetches, lentils, rye, and darnel. But as a rule
it was a poor, thin drink which resulted from the operation, and the
monks of Glastonbury deemed themselves fortunate in being allowed by
their abbot to put a load of oats into the vat to improve the quality
of the beverage; which may account for Peter of Blois characterising
the ale in use at Court in his day (he died about the end of the
twelfth century) as pote