TisILeclerc wrote: Has anyone mentioned the holy connection with water, booze and other things yet?
Ma wee cousin MacBoreades tells me this is still widely celebrated in Scotland, via a much favoured brew: Buckie. Or to give it its proper name, Buckfast Tonic Wine (a 15% wine fortified with caffeine), first brewed by the industrious Benedictine monks at Buckfast Abbey.
The recipe for the Tonic wine is attributed to the original French monks who settled at the Abbey in the 1880's.
http://www.buckfast.org.uk/tonic-wine_105.html
Buckfast Abbey is also famous among beekeepers. Britain's native black honeybee is a suitably Celtic bee. It is dark and hairy, and regarded as too lazy and aggressive. That's in comparison to the Italian bees the Buckfast monks imported. The immigrants work harder and achieve more, and are more pleasant while they do it. (Careful, we're only talking about bees). The honey from the bees is important in the production of mead, also still made on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.
Lindisfarne Mead is a unique alcoholic fortified wine manufactured here on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. The honey which is used in the production of Lindisfarne Mead is drawn from the four corners of the world and here, on the island, it is vatted with fermented grape juice, honey, herbs, and the pure natural water of an artesian well and fortified with fine spirits to produce this unique drink.

Quality controllers at work.

Tha'sh the fourth bottle, an' it still doen tash' right.