It certainly tasted like beef, though the tangy spices were unfamiliar.
It seems likely that the quality of the wine produced in ancient times was scarcely comparable to that of the modern product, inasmuch as the addition of resin, salts and spices to wine was a common practice.
Their objective was not so much India as Japan (Cipangu), of which they only knew vaguely as a land of spices and silks, British and which they hoped to reach by sailing westward.
Brooklyn is also an important place for the milling of coffee and spices (the 1905 product was valued at $15,274,092), the building of small boats, and the manufacture of foundry and machine shop products, malt liquors, barrels, shoes, chemicals, paints, cordage, twine, and hosiery and other knitted goods.
Cedar wood was brought from the forests of Lebanon, ivory, leopard skins and gold from the south, all kinds of spices and ingredients of incense from Somaliland and Arabia, fine linen and beautifully worked vessels from Syria and the islands.