The Dupui General Store Ledger:  1743-1793
 
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FRONTIER HOME BREW
-- MEAD

A single 1744 ledger entry tells the tale:  "By a pint of Mathigelin -- 1 pence." 

A flavoured spiced mead, Metheglin was an alcoholic libation derived from the fermentation of honey and water.  As one of the earliest of all alcoholic beverages, it assuredly had its place on the Pennsylvania frontier, and Jacobus Quick demonstrated that it could be used to pay off charges accrued at Dupui's general store.  Yet a pint of the brew didn't generate much income -- a mere pence -- (pointing to the meager popularity of the beverage).

Combined with the fact that the Dupui ledger records neither purchases of honey (the key ingredient), nor payments made in honey, a bottle of Mathigelin must have been a Pennsylvania frontier rarity (perhaps accepted for token payment owing solely to its curio value).

Production of mead was also not a quick process as this recipe from period indicates:

  Put three Pounds of the finest Honey to one Gallon of Water, two Lemon-pills to each Gallon; Boil it half an Hour, well scummed, then put in while boiling Lemon-pill; work it with Yeast, then put it in your Vessel, with the Pill, to stand five or six Months, and bottle it off for your Use.  

The area's beverage of choice was, of course, rum.  In the year 1744 alone, hundreds of gallons of rum were sold at Dupui's general store (with a gallon costing a mere 8 shillings). 

While popular literature will reference items such as tavern drinking mugs "from which specially they drank their mead, metheglin, and ale," the Depui ledger offers no support for the notion that either mead generally, or metheglin specifically, enjoyed any degree of popularity on the Pennsylvania frontier.




 
   

 
       
       
     
     
 
     
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