Mead, the favourite tipple of Queen Bess, was made by boiling honey and water together, with quantities of spices, herbs, and lemons; when it had stood for three months, the liquor was bottled and was ready to drink six weeks afterwards. Butler, in "The Feminine Monarchy, or History of Bees," draws a distinction between mead and metheglin, making hydromel the generic term. In the old cookery books and "Housewives" we find directions how to make strong Mead and small White Mead. Artificial Frontignac wine was made by boiling water, sugar, and raisins together, adding elder-flowers, syrup of lemons, and ale yeast. "English Champagne" was composed of water, sugar, and currants boiled, with the addition of balm; and, when bottled, a small lump of double-refined sugar was used to impart effervescence. In a somewhat similar manner numerous other forms of wine were compounded, as Saragossa or English Sack, Quince, Mountain, Plum, Birch, and Sage. Perhaps the most bizarre of all ancient concoctions is one termed "Cock Ale," for which this recipe is presented in E. Smith's "Compleat Housewife" (1736): "_To make Cock Ale_:--Take ten gallons of ale, and a large cock, the older the better, parboil the cock, flea him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, (you must craw and gut him when you flea him), put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the necks, and leave the same time to ripen as other ale." A notable advance in the art was accomplished during the latter part of the reign of Charles II, who was somewhat of a cook as well as an epicure. The sirloin of beef is said to owe its name to this monarch, who, dining upon a loin of beef with which he was particularly pleased, inquired the name of the joint, saying its merit was so great that it deserved to be knighted, and that thenceforth it should be called _Sir-Loin_. The Parisian school soon became fashionable, and numerous works on cookery made their appearance. But, like the fifteenth Louis when intent upon his pleasures at the Parc aux Cerfs, the second Charles, amid his dissolute court and its frail beauties whom Sir Peter Lely has drawn for us, had other matters to engage his serious attention than presiding at the range or posing as a patron of culinary authors. Pies, tarts, and pasties now met with increased favour, and "The Accomplisht Cook, or The Art and Mystery of Cookery" of Robert May, the first edition of which appeared in 1665, became the oracle of feasting and dining. "God and his own conscience," the author states, would not permit him "to bury his experiences with his silver hairs in the grave."