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Alcoholic drinks from Roman Italy

Columella's sun mead (aqua mulsa)aqua mulsa

Columella's aqua mulsa is a Roman honey-water drink from his farming manual, De re rustica (Book XII, ch. 12). Honey is mixed with rainwater aged for years, or with spring water boiled down to a quarter, sealed in a flask with gypsum, left in the summer sun for 40 days, then stored in a smoky loft. Columella never says the drink ferments; treating it as a mead is a modern reading, and this entry is a reconstruction from his text.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks40 daysFamily: Mead (base flow)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceColumella's own proportions in Roman units (sextarius, libra, dodrans), quoted from the Latin text without conversion.
Rainwater kept for many years, decanted off its sediment1 sextariusFirst method[columella12]
Honey1 libra (pound)First method; a drier drink takes a dodrans (three-quarters of a pound) of honey per sextarius of water[columella12]
Fresh water boiled down to a quarter, then cooled, with honey2 sextarii water to 1 sextarius honeySecond method, sweeter version; the drier version again uses a dodrans of honey per sextarius of water[columella12]

Total time across the recorded steps: 40 days

Start
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What changes: Rainwater is aged and decanted, or fresh water is boiled down and cooled

Step 1 of 4
Age or boil the water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Either rainwater is kept for many years in vessels in the open sun and poured off its sediment again and again, or fresh water is boiled down to a quarter and cooled. Output: clear water.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Columella's aqua mulsa is a Roman honey-water drink from his farming manual, De re rustica (Book XII, ch. 12). Honey is mixed with rainwater aged for years, or with spring water boiled down to a quarter, sealed in a flask with gypsum, left in the summer sun for 40 days, then stored in a smoky loft. Columella never says the drink ferments; treating it as a mead is a modern reading, and this entry is a reconstruction from his text. Made in 4 steps over 40 days. The longest step, seal and set in the sun, takes 40 days (Columella).

Key numbers
Main step40 daysReported[columella12]Seal and set in the sun

What makes this one different

Columella ages the rainwater for years, or boils the water down, before adding honey, then leaves the sealed flask 40 days in the summer sun and stores it in smoke. He keeps it apart from the thick honey syrup boiled from washed combs, which, he says, cannot stand in for aqua mulsa as a remedy for the sick.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Mella (comb honey syrup)Water used to soak wax combs, boiled in a lead pot to the thickness of defrutum and stored in pitched flasks; Columella says it cannot stand in for aqua mulsa as a remedy for the sick, because it bloats the stomach.

Safety

Columella boiled the comb-washing syrup in a lead vessel. The WHO says there is no known safe blood lead concentration, so do not copy this step with lead pots.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Columella wrote De re rustica in 60–65 CE as a practical farmer. In Greek and Roman medicine, hydromel (aqua mulsa) was prescribed for fevers and many other illnesses.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [columella12] Columella, De re rustica XII.11–12 (De mella et mulsa facienda; De aqua mulsa facienda), Latin text, The Latin Libraryarchive
  2. [cilliers2008] Cilliers L., Retief F. 2008, Bees, honey and health in antiquity, Akroterion 53:7–19paper
  3. [s1] Wikipedia, Mead (Columella section) (outline only)wiki
  4. [who-lead] World Health Organization, Lead poisoning (fact sheet)gov