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Alcoholic drinks from France

Cormé (service-tree fruit drink)cormé

Cormé is a sharp country drink made by fermenting the small pear-like fruit of the service tree (Sorbus domestica) in water. The 18th-century Encyclopédie fills a cask more than half full of firm, not yet ripe fruit, tops it up with water and leaves the bung open; Chaptal (1823) used oven-dried fruit at 8–10 kg per 100 litres of water and drew the drink after four or five days.

Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks4 days – 5 days

Recipe

Cormé (service-tree fruit drink), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: SCholewiak, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceChaptal (1823) gives 8 to 10 kg of dried fruit per 100 litres of water; the Encyclopédie gives only "more than half a cask" of fresh fruit topped up with water.
Oven-dried cormes (service-tree fruit)8–10 kg per 100 L waterChaptal's method; the Encyclopédie instead fills a cask more than half full of fresh, firm, yellowish fruit[chaptal1823][encyclopedie-corme]
WaterTo fill the cask[chaptal1823][encyclopedie-corme]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 days – 5 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: service-tree fruit knocked down in autumn

Step 1 of 5
Gather the fruit in autumn
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The Encyclopédie says cormes do not ripen on the tree and are knocked down in autumn; spread on straw they turn soft and sweet. For cormé it wants fruit not yet ripe, yellowish and firm. Output: firm service-tree fruit.

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

Cormé is a sharp country drink made by fermenting the small pear-like fruit of the service tree (Sorbus domestica) in water. The 18th-century Encyclopédie fills a cask more than half full of firm, not yet ripe fruit, tops it up with water and leaves the bung open; Chaptal (1823) used oven-dried fruit at 8–10 kg per 100 litres of water and drew the drink after four or five days. Made in 5 steps over 4 days – 5 days. The longest step, ferment, takes 4–5 days (Chaptal J.-A. 1823).

Key numbers
Main step4–5 daysReported[chaptal1823]Ferment

What makes this one different

Cormé is a piquette-style drink, fruit soaked in water rather than pressed juice, made from service-tree fruit. Cider made from pressed cormes, said to resemble perry, was also made near forests where the trees were common.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Cormé ciderPressed-fruit cider of cormes, made in some districts near forests; likened to perry.
  • Speierling-Apfelwein (Frankfurt)French Wikipedia says cormé is still made near Frankfurt under this name and is not a cider despite the word Apfelwein. English Wikipedia instead describes service-tree fruit added in small amounts to Frankfurt apple wine; see `cider`.
  • Mixed-fruit piquetteChaptal adds one twentieth of dried cormes and one thirtieth of juniper berries to a dried apple and pear drink.

Safety

The Encyclopédie warns that it spoils in frost and in heat, so it was drunk in winter.

History and sources

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

The Encyclopédie (1750s) describes cormé as a drink made in the countryside for servants. Chaptal (1823) still describes it, and the Maison rustique du XIXe siècle (1844) mentions a cider of cormes; the tree is now rare in France.

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. [encyclopedie-corme] Diderot D., d'Alembert J. (eds.), Encyclopédie, 1st edition, tome 4, p. 242, article CORMÉ (Wikisource transcription)book
  2. [chaptal1823] Chaptal J.-A. 1823, Chimie appliquée à l'agriculture, tome 2, ch. XIV, pp. 292–294, Paris, Madame Huzard (Wikisource transcription)book
  3. [maisonrustique1844] Bixio A. (ed.) 1844, Maison rustique du XIXe siècle, tome 2, livre 2, ch. 13, section II, Paris, Librairie agricole (Wikisource transcription)book
  4. [s1] French Wikipedia, Cormé (boisson) (outline only)wiki