Right now, Dylan Sprouse and Doug Brochu, All-Wise's founders and master mazers, make what they call Show Mead, which is created with unfiltered New York honey and aged with oak.
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It's high agritainment season in the state of New York, roadside farms crowded with parking, with u-pick pumpkin harvesters, apple-pickers, corn mazers, kids crammed in lil' red wagons, waving squash.
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The size of wooden mazers was restricted by the relatively small size of the trees that gave the best dense and grained wood. The addition of a metal band might double the capacity of a mazer.St. John Hope, 131 Large ornamented mazers were probably passed around the table for toasts and the like, as some covered cups were, but more ordinary ones may have been regarded as personal within a group such as a household, ship or monastery, no doubt with the leading figures reserving the finer examples for themselves. Evidence from inventories suggests many mazers were given names.
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Campbell Mounted examples are turned very finely, often from burr maple from the field maple. Both the wood and the vessels made of it were known as "mazer", so in contemporary accounts sometimes they are referred to as ciphis de mazer (drinking bowl of burr maple wood), and sometimes simply as a "mazer". The best mazers had silver or silver gilt rims added. Commonly prints were also added (a decorated disc in the base of the bowl), and occasionally, normally on later mazers, a silver or gilt foot was also added.
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St. John Hope, 133 A record of customs at a monastic community in Durham records that each monk has his own mazer "edged with silver double gilt", but also an especially large one called the "Grace cup" was passed around the table after Grace. Another such, called the "Judas cup", was only ever used on Maundy Thursday.St. John Hope, 134 Parish churches might be bequeathed mazers, and use them at "church ales" and other parish occasions.St. John Hope, 135 Decorated mazers are often included and briefly described in wills and inventories.
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A Pueblo Chieftain article dated June 8, 1872 describes the three stores of San Luis as kept by Fred Meyer & Co, Auguste Lacome, and Mazers & Rich in addition to a blacksmith, butcher, beer saloon, carpenter, and two hotels.
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Unlike other examples of mazers, it has no boss or knob in the centre of the inside, and there is no evidence that one has been removed or lost due to damage. It is fashioned from hardwood, most likely wych elm, with no visible decorations. A groove which may previously have held a metal rim runs around the lip.
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John Hope, 132 some from about 1550 onwards are effectively tazzas that are partly in wood. The later mazers sometimes had metal straps between the rim and the foot, as were added to the Bute Mazer. Examples continued to be produced after the main period ended in the 16th century, perhaps with a deliberate sense of traditionalism. Some modern woodturners and silversmiths have continued to produce examples, especially Omar Ramsden.
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This seems unlikely as the form and material (burr maple for mazers) are quite different. There were small stave-built drinking vessels common in the medieval period found around the Baltics and, since some of the earliest quaichs are stave-built, this could be the source.sycamore and silver quaich Traditionally quaichs are made of wood, an artform known as "treen". Some early quaichs are stave-built like barrels and some have alternating light and dark staves.
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Finely crafted drinking bowls, known as mazers, were produced in very limited quantities from dry wood, then decorated with silver-gilt central bosses and rims. As early as 1568, a separate fly wheel powered a lathe via a drive belt. A master would cut the wood while an apprentice turned the crank on a huge wheel, often several feet in diameter. This was a continuous revolution lathe, which led to adaptation to external power sources such as water, steam, and electricity.
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The examples that have been preserved above ground are generally of the most expensive kind, with large mounts in silver, but some archaeological sites have produced quantities of plain wood mazers, which were no doubt the most common at the time. The wreck of the Mary Rose is one example of a group find, and the Nanteos Cup a single survival. They are typically between five and eleven inches in diameter.Taylor, 78 Ornamented types usually have a rim or "band" of precious metal, generally of silver or silver gilt; the foot and the print being also of metal.
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There was a fair amount of plate both for the altar and for the table, including the parcel-gilt silver altar cross with figures of St Mary and St John, cruets, two chalices, three mazers, eight silver spoons, a salt with cover, and a silver goblet. The Buttery utensils were mainly pewter plates and dishes, basins and ewers, and the furniture was very simple. The livestock included 6 kine, 5 horses, 10 pigs and 10 sheep, and there were 10 loads of hay and 10 acres each of corn and of barley. Most of the bedding was very old and little worth, and the kitchen vessels are described as "trasshe".
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There are examples with wooden covers, sometimes with a metal handle, such as the Bute Mazer or Flemish and German mazers in the British Museum. On the outside, but generally not the inside of the metal band there is often an inscription, religious, or convivial, and the print was also often decorated with a sculpted or engraved plare, and sometimes a gem.St. John Hope, 131-133 The Bute Mazer is one of the most elaborate to survive, with a three-dimensional reclining lion rising from the base, and enamelled coats of arms in a circle around it. Saints, the religious monogram IHS, and animals, often no doubt with heraldic significance, are other common decorations of the boss.
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In a modern work, such as the Oriel College Oxford, A short guide (2006), the year is given as 1350. It was bought in 1493 for £4.18s.1d., under the mistaken belief that it had belonged to Edward II. In a college inventory of plate dated 21 December 1596, it is named as the Founder's Cup. The second notable piece of plate is a mazer of maplewood with silver gilt mounts, dating from 1470–1485. On the edge of the rim is a row of grouped beads; below is an inscription in black letters: :Vir racione vivas non quod petit atra voluptas sic caro casta datur lis lingue suppeditatur :Man, in thy draughts let reason be thy guide, and not the craving of perverted lust; :So honest nourishment will be supplied, and strife of tongue be trampled in the dust This type of shallow drinking vessel was quite common in the Middle Ages, but the only other mazers in Oxford are three dating from the 15th century, and one standing mazer from 1529–1530, all belonging to All Souls.
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