Traditional
Wassail (was hál, literally: be hale, i.e. healthy) is a beverage of hot mulled cider, traditionally drunk as an integral part of wassailing, a medieval English drinking ritual intended to ensure a good cider apple harvest the following year.
Wassail is often associated with Yuletide and was drunk from a ‘wassailing bowl’. The earliest versions of the drink itself were warmed mead into which roasted crab apples were dropped and burst to create a drink called ‘lambswool’ drunk on Lammas day, still known in Shakespeare’s time. Lammas (“loaf-mass”) was the celebration of the first wheat harvest in August. Later, the drink evolved to become a mulled cider made with sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, topped with slices of toast as sops and drunk from a large communal bowl. Bowls turned from wood, pottery or tin often had many handles for shared drinking and highly decorated lids; antique examples can still be found in traditional pubs. The Gloucestershire Wassail dates back to the Middle Ages.