DRINKING THE DIVINE WITH SABBAT WINE

Posted by Sarah on Monday, August 1, 2011

Over time I have learned my key as a mystic is alcohol. I do my best

divinations after a drink of wine or mead and I have the craziest true dreams and otherworldly travels after getting tipsy
at dinner parties. I’ve never been much of a drinker as I’ve never understood the North American past time of getting
drunk for kicks (I’m lucky enough not to have an addictive personality). It took me years to even like alcohol. After all,
who wants to try beer again after tasting a can of the cheap mass-produced stuff? It wasn’t until that fateful day when a
beekeeping friend of mine gave me a taste of his homebrewed mead that I starting to see a silver lining to drinking. Not
only could alcohol taste good, even great, but it could take on magical significance as well.
Wine lovers may be familiar with the French term terroir which refers to the elements of the land and climate the grapes
are grown in believed to be detectable in the finished wine by sommeliers. For me, terroir is directly related to the latin
term genius loci meaning “spirit of place”. The very essence of nature can be tasted. By imbibing the spirit of the land
one becomes a part of it and in holy communion with it.
When you drink a glass of wine you are also drinking the earth, the air, the water, and everything that has lived and died
where the grape vines grew. When you drink a glass of mead you are drinking the honey collected by bees from every
local flowering plant and tree where that honey was collected and if you add local fruits to it then you are also drinking
the land and the earth itself. For me, nothing reflects this better than the traditional English poem and folksong John
Barleycorn about the personification of barley being murdered and turned into beer and whiskey.
“And they hae taen his very heart’s blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
‘Twill make your courage rise.
‘Twill make a man forget his woe;
‘Twill heighten all his joy;
‘Twill make the widow’s heart to sing,
Tho’ the tear were in her eye.”
~Robert Burns
What better a sabbat wine for your rites than one crafted with ingredients from the land you live upon? By eating the
local gods and spirits your soul mingles with theirs creating a perfect opportunity to commune
 with them — to thank them, to leave them offerings, to petition them, to seek aid in
divination, to seek imbas, or simply to connect with the Earth and your own animal origins.
Alcohols have an ancient connection to ecstasy and altered states. Wines and meads were an intrinsic part of the ecstatic
cults of Dionysus, Artemis, Odin, and others. To be intoxicated was to be holy, closer to the divine, and closer to being
wild with human civility and inhibition left behind. For some the idea of loss of control over one’s actions is terrifying –
and giving in to it can have transformative effects opening up other states of awareness. When you are intoxicated the
word “can’t” no longer has meaning and hedgecrossing, shapeshifting, and communing with gods and spirits may come
as easily as breathing.
There is a dark side – there always is when it comes to ecstasy and intoxication. Intoxication is addictive. It feels good
and it’s easy to take too much and to be too loud, too rude, too wild. Some people become violent and twisted. Even
Dionysus murdered and raped in his ecstatic madness reminding us of the darkness within that intoxication can bring
out. The Norse beserkers are another frightening reminding of the darker side of ecstasy. With these ancient warnings I
remind you to always make your intentions clear for any kinds of rite or magic, even the imbibing of a sabbat wine. Keep
in mind that with the terroir comes both the good and bad spirits of the land the wine was crafted from.

MAGICAL BREWING
The Moon rules the waters of the Earth, so why not our alcoholic ones? Start a new batch of beer, cider, mead, or wine
on the full moon or the waxing moon to encourage the yeast to grow colonies and eat as much sugar as possible to
produce more alcohol. Rack and kill brews on the waning of the moon.
When you brew, leave offerings to a god of brewing and ask for their blessing on your new batch so that it ferments well,
it doesn’t spoil, and it tastes divine. You can ask for a blessing at each stage of the brewing from fermenting to bottling.
Don’t forget to leave an offering. The best offerings, of course, are brews you’ve made previously or a store-bought one if
you’re making your first batch. Otherwise fruits of agriculture, brewing ingredients (grains, fruits, honey, etc), or burnt
offerings are also traditional.
Brewing Deities
 Acan, Ægir, Amphictyonis (Demeter), Dionysus, Geshtinana, Goibniu, Liber, Medb, Meduna, Ninkasi, Odin, Osiris, Rán,
Radegast, Ragutiene, Raugupatis, Silenus, Tezcatzontecatl, and if you’re really daring there’s always the Maenads…
Make Your Own Herbal Sabbat Wines
Not much of a brewer or are unable to brew at this time? No worries! Make your own sabbat wines by infusing ritual
herbs into a bottle of store-bought wine or mead (preferably local or organic). You can use vodka, brandy, or whiskey if
you’re more of a hard liquor person. Add 1 to 4oz of fresh or dried herbs per one bottle of alcohol, re-cork (or use easy-
to-find cheap plastic seals), and shake every day up to twice a day for two weeks. After two weeks strain, sweeten with
honey or sugar if needed, and you now have a herbal wine for your magical rites and offerings. I would suggest looking
up the magical properties of each herb and select combinations that suit the intent and purpose of your sabbat wine.
This method can also be used to craft medicinal herbal wines.
Traditional wine herbs include: angelica root, basil, bay leaf, calamus root, cinnamon, clove, cowslip, damiana, fennel
seed, garden sage, ginger, hyssop, lemon balm, lemon peel, licorice root, mint, mugwort, nutmeg, orange peel, rosemary,
thyme, woodruff, wormwood, and yarrow.
Genius Loci Brewing Ritual
1. Give offering and pray to your chosen god of brewing before starting a new batch
2. Start the new batch at the full or waxing moon using local water, local grains, local fruits, local honey, etc
3. Anoint the carboy with an oil of blessing and protection or hang a sachet of like herbs around the neck of the
carboy
4. Give offering and pray to your chosen brewing god to aid in killing your brew (stopping the fermentation so its
safe to bottle) during the waning or dark moon
5. When it’s ready to bottle, again pray and give offering, this time for good taste and preservation
6. Take one or more bottles of your home-brew and make a pilgrimage to a mountain, crossroad, or great tree on a
festival day and bury it there in such a way no one knows it’s there but you and ask the land to protect it
7. Leave the bottle(s) buried for one whole year to age and soak up the essence of the land
8. A year later, on the same festival day, unearth the bottle(s) leaving an offering in thanks for the land protecting
your brew
9. Use your unearthed brew in a sabbat rite, a land guardianship ritual, or in a communion ritual to connect you
(and others) with the land or the gods – spill some on the earth and drink the rest!

Happy Lùnastal everyone! What better way to celebrate the first harvest than with brewing and drinking! And now to
select which bottle of mead to open for tonight’s feast…

Books of Interest:
 Intoxication in Mythology by Ernest L. Abel
 Mad About Mead: Nectar of the Gods by Pamela Spence
 Making Wild Wines and Meads by Pattie Vargas & Rich Gulling
 Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner