This is not the place to furnish what may be termed a list of menus at Jewish tables. In earlier times the meal was, no doubt, very simple. It became otherwise when intercourse with Rome, Greece, and the East made the people familiar with foreign luxury, while commerce supplied its requirements. Indeed, it would scarcely be possible to enumerate the various articles which seem to have been imported from different, and even distant, countries.
To begin with: the wine was mixed with water, and, indeed, some thought that the benediction should not be pronounced till the water had been added to the wine.a According to one statement, two parts,b according to another, three parts, of water were to be added to the wine.c Various vintages are mentioned: among them a red wine of Saron, and a black wine. Spiced wine was made with honey and pepper. Another mixture, chiefly used for invalids, consisted of old wine, water, and balsam; yet another was wine of myrrh;d we also read of a wine in which capers had been soaked. To these we should add wine spiced, either with pepper, or with absinth; and what is described as vinegar, a cooling drink made either of grapes that had not ripened, or of the lees. Besides these, palm-wine was also in use. Of foreign drinks, we read of wine from Ammon, and from the province Asia, the latter a kind of must boiled down. Wine in ice came from the Lebanon; a certain kind of vinegar from Idumæa; beer from Media and Babylon; a barley-wine (zythos) from Egypt. Finally, we ought to mention Palestinian apple-cider,e and the juice of other fruits. If we adopt the rendering of some, even liqueurs were known and used.
edeirsheim History.
So some believed it was 25% wine, versus 33% wine. Some Believed it was 3 parts water and one part wine. 25% of 12% is only 3% alcohol.
