HIPDOCRAS. An old medicinal drink or cordial, made of wine mixed with spices—such as cinnamon, ginger, and sugar— and strained through woollen cloths. The early spelling usual in English was ipocras or ypocras. The word is an adaptation of the M.Lat. Vinum Hippocraticum, or wine of Hippocrates, so called, not because it was supposed to be a receipt of the physician, but from an apothecary's name for a strainer or sieve. "Hippocrates' sleeve" (see W. W. Skeat, Chaucer, note to the Merchant's Tale).