Gallons & a halfe to one Gallon of Honey, and that proportion as
much as you will make, and let it boyle an houre, and in the
boyling skim it very clear, then set it a cooling as you doe Beere,
when it is cold take some very good Ale Barme and put into the
bottome of the Tubb a little and a little as they do Beere, keeping
back the thicke Setling that lyeth in the bottome of the Vessel
that it is cooled in, and when it is all put together cover it with
a Cloth and let it worke very neere three dayes, and when you mean
to put it up, skim off all the Barme clean, put it up into the
Vessel, but you must not stop your Vessel very close in three or
four dayes but let it have all the vent, for it will worke and when
it is close stopped you must looke very often to it and have a peg
in the top to give it vent, when you heare it make a noise as it
will do, or else it will breake the Vessell; sometime I make a bag
and put in good store of Ginger sliced, some Cloves and Cinnamon
and boyl it in, and other time I put it into the Barrel and never
boyl it, it is both good, but Nutmeg & Mace do not well to my
Tast."

In the list of values fixed by the Piscataqua planters in 1633, "6
Gallons Mathaglin were equal to 2 lb. Beauer." In the middle of the
century metheglin was worth ten shillings a barrel in the Connecticut
Valley.

Though mild, these drinks were intoxicating. One could "get fox'd e'en
with foolish matheglin." Old James Howel says, "metheglin does stupefy
more than any other liquor if taken immoderately and keeps a humming in
the brain which made one say he loved not metheglin because he was wont
to speak too much of the house he came from, meaning the hive."

Bradford tells of backsliders from Merrymount who "abased themselves
disorderly with drinking too much stronge drinke aboard the
Freindshipp." This strong drink was metheglin, of which two hogsheads
were to be delivered at Plymouth. But after it was transferred to wooden
"flackets" in Boston, these Friendship merrymakers contrived to "drinke
it up under the name leackage" till but six gallons of the metheglin
arrived at Plymouth.

"Cyder famed" was made at an early date from the fruitful apple-trees so
faithfully planted by Endicott, Blackstone, and other settlers. Cider
was cheap enough; Josselyn wrote, "I have had at the tap houses of
Boston an ale-quart of cyder spiced and