What Did Shakespeare Drink?
▻http://www.shakespeare-online.com/faq/shakespearedrinking.html
Shakespeare’s own father was an official ale taster in Stratford – an important and respected job which involved monitoring the ingredients used by professional brewers and ensuring they sold their ale at Crown regulated prices. Beer, however, eventually became more popular than ale. “In 1574, there were still 58 ale brewers to 33 beer brewers in the City [London], but beer gradually replaced ale as the national drink over the course of the century”
▻http://books.google.com/books?id=tGDhn_ZWqRUC&pg=PA1&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2X7o6z04lcJw
▻http://hogsheadwine.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-canary-wine
Thomas Nichols was born in the city of Gloucester in 1532.[2] In 1557 he moved to Tenerife where he was a commercial representative for three London merchants for seven years. In 1583 he published A Pleasant Description of the Fortunate Ilandes, Called the Islands of Canaria, with Their Straunge Fruits and Commodities.[3] Of Gran Canaria, Thomas Nichols writes that it had “singular good wine, especially in the towne of Telde.” Of Tenerife were there was “very good wines in abundance…Out of this Iland is laden great quantity of wines for the West India, and other countreys. The best growth on a hill side called the Ramble.” The Island of La Gomera had “great plenty of wine.” The Island of La Palma was “fruitfull of wine” with the city of Palma showing a “great concentration for wines, which are laden for the West India & other places.” The best location for vines “grow in a soile called the Brenia, where yerely is gathered twelue thousand buts of wine like vnto Malmsies.” Of the islands of Lanzarota and Forteuentura where there was “very little wine of the growth of those Ilands.”
Wines of the Canary Islands - NYT
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/dining/reviews/wines-of-the-canary-islands-review.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1387127278-I94VbVb
Vines on Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Canaries, grow in the black soil of volcanic ash.
Sack (wine)
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_%28wine%29
Sack is an antiquated wine term referring to white fortified wine imported from mainland Spain or the Canary Islands.[1] There was sack of different origins such as:
Canary sack from the Canary Islands,
Malaga sack from Málaga,
Palm sack from Palma de Mallorca, and
Sherris sack from Jerez de la Frontera
The term Sherris sack later gave way to Sherry as the English term for fortified wine from Jerez. Since Sherry is practically the only one of these wines still widely exported and consumed, “sack” (by itself, without qualifier) is commonly but not quite correctly quoted as an old synonym for Sherry.
Most sack was probably sweet, and matured in wooden barrels for a limited time. In modern terms, typical sack may have resembled cheaper versions of medium Oloroso Sherry.
