Medieval Hippocras: Spiced Wine, the Original Mulled Wine
Long before the mulled wine of winter markets, medieval feasts ended with a very different spiced drink: hippocras, a sweet, aromatic wine steeped with costly spices and strained clear. Part luxury, part digestive, part medicine, it was the crowning sip of the great medieval banquet — and its story reveals how closely food, pleasure, and health were once entwined.
What Was Hippocras?
Hippocras (also spelled ypocras or ipocras) was wine sweetened and spiced, then filtered until it ran clear and bright. Cooks steeped a blend of ground spices and sugar or honey in wine, let the flavours infuse, and then strained the mixture repeatedly through a cloth bag until it was smooth and free of grit. The result was a rich, warming, intensely aromatic drink, more like a spiced liqueur or fortified aperitif than everyday table wine.
The Name and the Sleeve
The drink's curious name honours the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, reflecting its reputation as a healthful, medicinal preparation. The conical cloth filter used to clarify it was even nicknamed "Hippocrates' sleeve" (manicum Hippocratis). This medical association was no accident: spiced wines were considered tonics, and naming the drink after the father of medicine advertised its supposed virtues.
A Cabinet of Spices
Hippocras was defined by its spices, and medieval recipes are lavish with them. Cinnamon and ginger were the backbone, joined by cloves, pepper, nutmeg, and the now-forgotten favourites grains of paradise and galangal. Because these spices were expensive imports, a well-made hippocras was a display of wealth, its very fragrance announcing the riches poured into the cup. The exact blend varied by cook, region, and purse.
Red and White, Sweet and Strong
Hippocras came in different guises. It could be made with red or white wine — the red versions related to drinks like clarré or clairet — and its sweetness and strength were adjusted to taste and occasion. Some were gentle and fragrant; others were potent, fortified with extra sugar and spice into a rich cordial. This flexibility made it suitable both as a refined feast-drink and as a warming restorative.
The Crown of the Feast
At a great medieval banquet, hippocras had a special place: it was served at the end of the meal, during the course known as the issue de table or "void," accompanied by wafers (thin, crisp biscuits). This closing ritual of sweet spiced wine and wafers signalled the winding-down of the feast, a genteel, aromatic full stop to the eating. To be served hippocras was to be treated to one of the finer pleasures of the medieval table.
Wine as Medicine
Medieval people did not draw a sharp line between food and medicine, and hippocras sat squarely in both worlds. According to the doctrine of the four humours, spices were "hot" and "dry," and a warming, spiced wine was thought to aid digestion, comfort the stomach, and balance the body — which is exactly why it was served after a heavy meal. Physicians prescribed spiced wines as remedies, and hippocras blurred the line between a luxurious drink and a dose of good health.
Not Quite Mulled Wine
It is tempting to equate hippocras with modern mulled wine, but there are real differences. Hippocras was typically made by steeping and straining, not by simmering over heat, and it was often served cool or at room temperature rather than hot. It was also sweeter, more heavily spiced, and clarified to a bright clarity that rustic mulled wine lacks. In spirit it is mulled wine's sophisticated medieval ancestor, but the two are not the same drink.
Recipes in the Old Books
Hippocras appears in the great medieval cookbooks, including England's Forme of Cury and France's Le Ménagier de Paris, which give spice blends and methods for making it. These recipes show it was a well-established, codified preparation, with recognised proportions and techniques, and confirm its status as a standard flourish of the medieval and Renaissance table across Europe.
A Drink Across Europe
Spiced, sweetened wines were beloved throughout medieval and early modern Europe, and hippocras had many regional cousins and variations. From the courts of France and England to the German lands and beyond, the idea of dressing wine with spice and sugar for pleasure and health was widespread. Hippocras was the refined, filtered aristocrat of this broad family of spiced wines.
Sugar, Status, and the Senses
As sugar became more available in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, hippocras grew sweeter and even more of a luxury showpiece. Its combination of costly wine, costly spice, and costly sugar made it a drink that appealed to every sense and proclaimed the host's generosity and standing. It was indulgence and etiquette in a single fragrant glass.
Decline and Survival
As tastes changed and the medieval love of heavy spicing faded, hippocras slipped from fashion. But it never entirely vanished: its spirit lives on in the mulled wines, glühwein, and spiced holiday drinks of modern Europe, which carry forward the same instinct to warm and sweeten wine with spice in the cold months. Every cup of mulled wine at a Christmas market is, in a sense, a distant descendant of medieval hippocras.
Hippocras and the Rhythm of the Year
Hippocras was woven into the celebrations of the medieval and Tudor year. It flowed at weddings, feast days, and the great festivals of the calendar, above all the twelve days of Christmas, when spiced wine warmed the cold and marked the season's abundance. To offer hippocras was to mark an occasion as special, and its appearance signalled festivity as surely as the wafers and sweetmeats that accompanied it.
Its seasonal and ceremonial role helped ensure its long survival. Even as high medieval cooking faded, the association of spiced sweet wine with winter, hospitality, and celebration proved durable, carrying the idea forward into the mulled wines of later centuries. When we reach for a warming, spiced drink at a midwinter gathering today, we echo a habit that hippocras did much to establish — the sense that spiced wine belongs to the year's darkest, most convivial nights.
Making Hippocras at Home
Recreating hippocras is easy and rewarding. Steep a bottle of red or white wine with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, a little pepper or grains of paradise, and sugar or honey for a day, then strain it through a fine cloth until clear, and serve it cool with crisp wafers or biscuits. Unheated and freshly spiced, it tastes noticeably different from mulled wine — brighter, more aromatic — and offers a genuine sip of the medieval feast's grand finale.
Source note
This article draws on medieval cookbooks such as the Forme of Cury and Le Ménagier de Paris and on food history. Spice blends and methods varied widely, and the medieval understanding of hippocras as "medicine" reflects humoral theory rather than modern science; the reconstruction described here follows the general medieval approach.
Frequently asked questions
What is hippocras?
Hippocras was wine sweetened with sugar or honey and steeped with costly spices, then strained clear through a cloth. Rich, warming and aromatic, it was the crowning drink served at the end of a medieval feast.
Why is it called hippocras?
The name honours the Greek physician Hippocrates, reflecting its reputation as a healthful, medicinal drink; the conical cloth filter used to clarify it was even nicknamed 'Hippocrates' sleeve'.
Is hippocras the same as mulled wine?
It is mulled wine's medieval ancestor, but not identical: hippocras was usually made by steeping and straining rather than simmering, and was often served cool or at room temperature, sweeter and more heavily spiced than modern mulled wine.
How do you make hippocras?
Steep red or white wine with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, a little pepper and sugar or honey for a day, then strain it clear through a fine cloth and serve it cool with crisp wafers — noticeably brighter and more aromatic than heated mulled wine.
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