Cinnamon

To Make Cinnamon Water #1

To Make Cinnamon Water — illustration
Illustration — a stand-in until there's a photo of the real thing.

Source Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, c. 1550-1625, ed. Karen Hess, cited in Basic Cordials by Master Terafan Greydragon — original

Ingredients

  • a gallon of muskadine, malmsey, or sack
  • a pound of bruised cinnamon

Method

  1. Take a gallon of muskadine, malmsey, or sack & put it in A vessill yt may be close covered, & put to it into ye vessell a pound of bruised cinnamon.
  2. let it stand 3 dayes, & every day stir 2 or 3 times.
  3. then put it in a limbeck of glass, stoped fast.
  4. set it in a brass pot full of water, & put hay in ye bottome & about ye sydes.
  5. then make ye pot seeth, & let it distill in to a glass kept as close as may be.
  6. shift ye glass every houre after ye first time, for ye first will be ye strongest, & ye last will be very weak.

Notes

  • Caryl doubts the very high cinnamon load yields a drinkable result.

This recipe predates 1700 and is quoted from its original printed source. Spelling is left exactly as printed.