Recipes From The Kitchen At Bag End

This is the recipe I was telling you about. I use a whole cup of fresh mint leaves.

Sekanjabin
Dissolve 4 cups sugar in 2 1/2 cups of water; when it comes to a boil add 1 cup wine vinegar. Simmer 1/2 hour. Add a handful of mint, remove from fire, let cool. Dilute the resulting syrup to taste with ice water (5 to 10 parts water to 1 part syrup). The syrup stores without refrigeration.

This recipe comes from Cariadoc's Miscellany. I've seen several others as well, but they are all mostly the same. There are a good many great recipes on this page:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/drinks.html#2

And I know it might sound funny to make a drink out of vinegar and mint, but it really is a very good thirst quencher, and no more tart than lemonade.