Word To Use Today: metheglin.

I've always had a vague idea that metheglin was some sort of cough mixture.

It sounded jolly nasty, whatever it was.

It turns out that I was wrong about the nastiness (the meth bit is nothing to do with methylated - as in methylated spirits - which is derived from the Greek words methu, wine, and hulē, wood) but I was pretty-much spot on as regards the cough medicine.

Metheglin is a fermented honey drink: in other words it's a sort of mead. 

Your metheglin can be flavoured with all sorts of stuff: cloves, cinnamon, ginger, coriander or nutmeg, tea or vanilla, orange peel, meadowsweet, hops, lavender or chamomile.

It's obviously jolly tasty stuff, and as you'll see from the derivation below, the stuff has been used as a medicine for hundreds of years...

...unless, of course, the name was just an excuse for drinking the stuff.


Photo by Evan-Amos

Good health!

Word To Use Today: metheglin. This word comes from the Welsh meddyglyn, from meddyg, healing, from Latin medicus medical plus llyn, liquor.