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chained_bear commented on the word spiced ale
"This was where spices came, yet again, to the rescue. The medieval popularity of nutmeg owed much to ale's perishability: as the clove and cinnamon were to wine, so the nutmeg was to ale--the context of Chaucer's reference to 'notemuge to putte in ale.' Here too, the medieval palate seems to have developed a virtue out of necessity, acquiring a taste for spiced ale to the point that the addition of spice became expected, even preferred; the spice was used 'wheither it (the ale) be moyste (fresh) or stale,' as Chaucer puts it. ... Some of these spiced ales survived until relatively recently, such as 'Stingo,' a variety of pepper-flavored beer popular in London in the eighteenth century. Russian writers of the nineteenth century mention sbiten', a spiced mead flavored with cardamom and nutmeg."
--Jack Turner, _Spice: The History of a Temptation_ (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 118
Another usage/historical note can be found in a comment on clarry.
December 2, 2016