Qvarto

…that in Shakespeare’s time ‘apple’ was also a generic name used for any fruit?  It was the same in many Latin languages. That’s why in French potato is pomme de terre (apple of the earth) and tomato, thought to be an aphrodisiac, pomme d’amour, (love apple, still used in English too.) 

So, when Shakespeare or the St James’ Bible speak of the Forbidden Fruit, and the Apple of Temptation, well… they probably meant Quince. Or Orange? Or Lemon? (You decide!)

…that roses were so valued in Shakespeare’s time that in 1576 Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Chancellor paid yearly rent of ‘a Red Rose, ten loads of hay, and ten pounds per annum’ to live in Ely Place palace in Holborn? 

He also had to reserve the sitting tenant ‘the right of gathering twenty bushels of Roses yearly’. Symbols of might, monarchy and mortality, roses are mentioned more often than any other flower in Shakespeare’s works. (Bloomin’ ’eck.)

…the first orange tree recorded in England was planted in 1595 at Beddington in Surrey — from seeds brought into the country from Versailles by Sir Walter Raleigh? 

Whilst the Elizabethans loved oranges though they would have been horrified at the idea of eating them raw. They were used almost exclusively for deserts, marmalades and ‘as sauce for many sorts of meats, in respect of the sweet sourness giving a relish and delight whereinsoever they are used’ (quoted in Henry Nicholson Ellacombe’s ‘The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare’).

…that the eternally aromatic Rosemary, native to the Mediterranean, symbolized Remembrance? (‘it is the custom in France to put a branch of Rosemary in the hands of the dead when in the coffin, when the coffins have been opened after several years, the plant has been found to have vegetated so much that the leaves have covered the corpse’ — Valmont Bomare, 1760, Histoire Naturelle.) 

Rosemary was loved and ubiquitous in Elizabethan kitchen gardens and grown as a medicine too. In 1629 England’s first great botanist, John Parkinson praised it as useful ‘inwardly for the head and heart, outwardly for the sinews and joynts; for civile uses, as all do know, at weddings, funerals, &c., & to bestow among friends’ (from his Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, or Park-in-Sun's Terrestrial Paradise, 1629.)

…that lemons originally came from Asia, were traded to the Romans in the second century AD and then were finally cultivated en masse in Europe in the middle of the 15th century, in Genoa? 

Speaking of Genoa, they were introduced, lucratively, into the New World American colonies which so inspired Shakespeare in 1493 — by a man often called Xpoual de Colon. 

You may know him as Christopher Columbus, but that’s another story…

...that the first Guild of Pepperers was established in England in 1180 to carefully monitor quality and measures? Peppercorns were so expensive (and relished!) that they were accepted as payment in lieu of cash for dowries, taxes and rent. 

…that whilst juniper berries today are used primarily in Gin, in medieval Britain they were only grown and used in Scotland — to flavour whisky? 

Shakespeare indirectly refers to juniper through the name of the true-life character Jack Cade in Henry VI part II. The word Cade is the old English for Juniper and it is still possible to buy Cade Oil today. Jack Cade led a rebellion against the king and while fleeing he met an unfortunate end while stealing herbs from a garden. 

The real Cade was wounded and died of his wounds before reaching London for trial for being a traitor. As a warning to others, Cade's body underwent a mock trial and was beheaded at Newgate. Cade's body was dragged through the streets of London before being quartered.

But our reference to Juniper comes from another vein.

Sir Toby Belch, the carousing guzzler at the heart of Twelfth Night continuously raises his glass to ‘Illyria!’, the ancient civilization on the shores of the Ionian that is today Albania – and that is where Qvarto’s own succulent juniper berries are sourced from. 

Gëzuar! (That’s ‘Cheers!’ in Albanian).

…that the ‘Iris’ Shakespeare mentions in so many plays isn’t actually the flower? In fact, she’s the brilliant blue Goddess of the Rainbow, carrying messages between the ocean depths and the underworld. 

Baffled? You will be! Because the Bard still does reference irises, quite a lot. But when he does, he’s referring to lilies. (Pay attention). Specifically, the heraldic fleur de lis and flower-de-luce, which botanists then and now agree were actually iris. As well as adding balance, clean floral aromas and mouth-watering parma violet sweetness to Qvarto, Iris Root is still widely used, just as in the Bard’s time, in herbal medicine.