Hypocras

Break the cinnamon into shards, bruise the ginger and galangal slices with the flat of a knife, and crack the grains of paradise just enough to split their husks — you want the spices opened, not powdered, so they release flavor cleanly and strain out later. Grate the nutmeg fresh. Combine all the spices with the cloves and bay leaf. Medieval cooks called this the powder for hypocras, though the best versions kept the pieces coarse.

Pour the wine into a non-reactive pot and warm it gently until it just steams — never let it simmer, or you boil off the wine's perfume and harshen it. Stir in the honey until fully dissolved, then add the cracked spice blend. Hold it at a bare steam, below a simmer, for 10 to 15 minutes to bloom the spices and marry the honey, then pull it from the heat. The kitchen should fill with cinnamon, clove, and warm pepper.

Cover the pot and let the spiced honeyed wine steep off the heat — a few hours at minimum, but overnight to a full day is the medieval standard and gives a far rounder, deeper infusion. The wine darkens and grows aromatic as it cools and sits. Taste it now and then: it should build toward a strong, sweet, spicy balance, since the felt-straining will mellow it slightly. The longer cold steep favors round cinnamon and honey over harsh raw alcohol.

Hang a clean conical sleeve of thick felt or several layers of flannel — the manche d'Hippocras, the Hippocratic sleeve that gives hypocras its name — and pour the infused wine through it into a clean vessel. The first pass runs cloudy with sediment; catch it and pour it back through the sleeve again, and a third time, until the wine drips out brilliantly clear and garnet-bright. The felt's slow filtration polishes the wine to a jewel-like transparency. Bottle and serve cool, in small cups, as a feast-day cordial.