Wassail.

On Twelfth Eve, in Devonshire, it is customary for the farmer to leave his warm fireside, accompanied by a band of rustics, with guns, blunderbusses, etc., presenting an appearance which at other times would be somewhat alarming. Thus armed, the band proceed to an adjoining orchard, where is selected one of the most fruitful and aged of the apple trees, grouping round which they stand and offer up their invocations in the following doggerel rhyme: 

Here's to thee

Old apple tree!

Whence thou mayst bud,

And whence thou mayst blow,

And whence thou mayst bear,

Apples enow:

Hats full,

Caps full,

Bushels,bushels, sacks full,

And my pockets full, too!

Huzza! huzza!

The cider-jug is then passed around, and with many a hearty shout, the party fire off their guns, charged with powder only, amidst the branches.

London News, January 11, 1851

The WASSAIL

Give way, give way, ye gates, and win

An easy blessing to your bin

And basket, by our entering in.

May both with manchet stand replete;

Your larders, too, so hung with meat,

That though a thousand, thousand eat,

Yet, ere twelve moons shall whirl about

Their silv'ry spheres, there's none may doubt

But more's sent in than was served out.

Next, may your dairies prosper so,

As that your pans no ebb may know;

But if they do, the more to flow,

Like to a solemn sober stream,

Bank'd all with lilies, and the cream

Of sweetest cowslips filling them.

Then may your plants be press'd with fruit,

Nor bee or hive you have be mute,

But sweetly sounding like a lute.

Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughs,

Your stacks, your stocks, your sweetest mows,

All prosper by your virgin-vows.

--Alas! we bless, but see none here,

That brings us either ale or beer;

In a dry-house all things are near.

Let's leave a longer time to wait,

Where rust and cobwebs bind the gate;

And all live here with needy fate;

Where chimneys do for ever weep

For want of warmth, and stomachs keep

With noise the servants' eyes from sleep.

It is in vain to sing, or stay

Our free feet here, but we'll away:

Yet to the Lares this we'll say:

'The time will come when you'll be sad,

'And reckon this for fortune bad.

Robert Herrick

Then here’s to the heartening wassail, 

Wherever good fellows are found; 

Be its master instead of its vassal, and order the glasses around.

Ogden Nash

TWELFTH NIGHT

      Now, now the mirth comes

      With the cake full of plums,

Where bean's the king of the sport here ;

      Beside we must know,

      The pea also

Must revel, as queen, in the court here.

      Begin then to choose,

      This night as ye use,

Who shall for the present delight here,

      Be a king by the lot,

      And who shall not

Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.

      Which known, let us make

      Joy-sops with the cake ;

And let not a man then be seen here,

      Who unurg'd will not drink

      To the base from the brink

A health to the king and queen here.

      Next crown a bowl full

      With gentle lamb's wool :

Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

      With store of ale too ;

      And thus ye must do

To make the wassail a swinger.

      Give then to the king

      And queen wassailing :

And though with ale ye be whet here,

      Yet part from hence

      As free from offence

As when ye innocent met here.

Robert Herrick

LAMB'S WOOL

Ingredients

• 1 liter traditional ale or traditional hard cider
• 1/2 liter cider 
• 6 apples, peeled and cored
• 2 tbsp Calvados
• 1 nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1 tsp fresh ground ginger

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 120C
2. Prepare the apples 
3. Core the 6 apples fully, getting rid of the pips. Lightly butter the baking tray. Sprinkle optional Calvados on apples. Place the apples on the baking tray about 6cm (2 inches) apart – they will swell up a little. Bake the apples at 120C for about an hour or so – so they become soft and pulpy and the skins are easy to peel away.
4. In a large thick bottomed saucepan (which is quite tall to avoid splashes when whisking) add the sugar. Cover the sugar in a small amount of the ale (or cider) and mead and heat gently. Stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved.
5. dd in the ground ginger and grate in the whole of the nutmeg. Stir, and keeping the pan on a gentle simmer, slowly add in all the rest of the ale (or cider). Leave for 10 minutes on a gentle heat as you deal with the apples.
6. Take the baked apples out of the oven to cool slightly for 10 minutes – they should now be soft and pulpy.
7. Break open the apples and scoop out the baked flesh into a bowl, discarding the skin. Then take a fork and mash this apple pulp up, while it is still warm, into a smooth purée with no lumps. Add the apple purée into the ale (or cider) lambswool, mixing it in with a whisk.
8. Let the saucepan continue to warm everything through for thirty minutes, on a very gentle heat, until ready to drink. When warmed through use the whisk again for a couple of minutes (or use a stick blender) to briskly and vigorously froth the drink up and mix everything together.
9. The apple and light froth will float to the surface, and depending on how much you have whisked it, the more it looks like lamb’s wool. Note: to traditionally froth drinks up they were normally poured continuously between two large serving jugs to get air into the drink.
10. Ladle the hot Lambswool into heat-proof mugs or glasses and grate over some nutmeg, or pour the drink into a communal bowl (with several thick pieces of toast in the bottom) to pass around if wassailing.

FARMER'S WASSAIL

Ingredients

• 1 quart hard cider
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 5 or 6 pieces cracked ginger or 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 2 cups dark rum
• Juice and thinly pared rind of 1 lemon
• Sugar, to taste
• 2 slices toasted bread (if desired)
• 6 or 8 baked crab apples or 2 or 3 baked large apples

Instructions

1. Heat ale in saucepan until just about to boil. 
2. Stir in spices, rum, lemon juice, slivered rind and sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves.
3. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 to 30 minutes. Do not boil at any time. 
4. Remove from heat and either pour into punch bowl or individual cups and add toast and apples. 

WASSAILING the APPLE TREES