Roman honey wine: the aperitif that opened every banquet in the ancient world
Origin: Rome, Roman Empire
From the journey of Grapes.
Mulsum is the Roman aperitif; honey-sweetened wine served at the opening of the cena (the main meal of the Roman day), drunk during the gustatio, the first course of appetisers that preceded the main meal proper. It is documented by Columella in De Re Rustica, by Pliny the Elder in Naturalis Historia, and appears throughout the recipe collection of Apicius; the first-century Roman cookery text that is the oldest substantial culinary manuscript to survive from antiquity. The recipe is simple: wine, honey, and spices. But in Roman hands, this combination was considered both a medical intervention and a gastronomic pleasure, a distinction the Romans were not always careful to maintain. Roman wine was typically stronger, more resinous, and more oxidised than modern wine; it was routinely diluted with water (drinking undiluted wine was considered barbaric, a practice associated with northern barbarians and the dangerously passionate Greeks). Mulsum added honey to smooth the rough edges of ordinary wine, and spices; pepper, cinnamon, saffron, and herbs; to add complexity and perceived medicinal benefit. Honey was one of the Roman world's primary sweeteners, and its combination with wine appeared in cooking, medicine, and religious ritual with equal frequency. The Roman relationship with grape cultivation was total and imperial. By the height of the Empire, Roman vineyards stretched from Britain to Mesopotamia, from the Rhine to the Nile: a wine-producing network of unprecedented geographic scope. Roman amphorae carrying wine, olive oil, and fish sauce have been found on every continent where Roman sites have been excavated. The vine was the most economically and culturally significant crop in the Roman agricultural system, and mulsum was the simplest, most domestic expression of that centrality: the grape's fermented juice transformed by sweetness into a welcoming drink of arrival. Mulsum was also drunk at the Saturnalia (the Roman midwinter festival), served to guests on arrival, and given as a gift. Cato the Elder, Rome's great conservative moralist, records a recipe for mulsum in De Agricultura that is essentially unchanged from the versions that appear two centuries later in Apicius. The continuity of the recipe across Roman history reflects the drink's fundamental status; it was not a luxury, not a fashion, but a fixture of Roman domestic hospitality as stable as the hearth itself.
Roman mulsum was made with a range of wines from very ordinary table wine (the cheapest honeys and wines for everyday use) to the finest Falernian (aged for decades and reserved for special occasions). The recipe scales well; for a larger gathering, simply multiply all quantities. For a more historically accurate version, try defrutum mulsum: reduce the grape juice by half before fermenting (or use grape must concentrate available from winemaking suppliers): this produces a much richer, more concentrated result closer to what Roman texts describe as the finest mulsum. A small amount of cumin (one pinch) is documented in some Roman recipes for mulsum and adds an unusual but interesting note.
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