MEAD, a wholesome, agreeable liquor, prepared with honey and water.

One of the best methods of preparing mead is as fol- lows: Into twelve gallons of water put the whites of six eggs; mixing these well together, and to the mix- ture adding twenty pounds of honey. Let the liquor boil an hour; and when boiled, add cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, and rosemary. As soon as it is cold, put a spoonful of yeast to it, and tan it up, keep- ing the vessel filled as it works; when it has done working, stop it up close; and, when fine, bottle it off for use.

The author of the Dictionary of Chemistry directs to choose the whitest, purest, and best tasted honey, and to put it into a kettle with more than its weight of water: a part of this liquor must be evaporated by boiling, and the liquor scummed, till its consistence is such, that a fresh egg shall be supported on its surface without sinking more than half its thickness into the liquor; then the liquor is to be strained and poured through a funnel into a barrel; this barrel, which ought to be nearly full, must be exposed to a heat as equable as possible, from 20 to 27 or 28 degrees of Mr Reaumur's thermometer, taking care that the bun- ghole be slightly covered, but not closed. The pheno- mena of the spirituous fermentation will appear in this liquor, and will subsist during two or three months, according to the degree of heat; after which they will diminish and cease. During this fermentation, the barrel must be filled up occasionally with more of the same kind of liquor of honey, some of which ought to be kept apart, on purpose to replace the liquor which flows out of the barrel in froth. When the fermenta- tion ceases, and the liquor has become very vinous, the barrel is then to be put into a cellar, and well closed; a year afterwards the mead will be fit to be put into bottles. Mead is a liquor of very ancient use in Britain. See Feast.