With spring in the air and flowers starting to bloom, we’ll soon see and hear buzzing bees zipping from blossom to blossom. After they pollinate each bloom, the busy little guys flit back to the hive and get to work on the most miraculous of creations: honey.
The golden, sticky substance has been revered for millennia. Many people know that beer is an ancient drink made from fermented grains, and wine is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting fruit. But few know much about mead, which is made from fermented honey.
Mead is ancient, dating back to 2000 BC. It’s made when honey is mixed with water and yeast. It’s referred to in the ancient texts of the Sumerians, Romans and Africans.
There are tales of Norsemen toasting with the mead-filled skulls of slain enemies. Queen Elizabeth possessed her own royal recipe for mead, and Chaucer wrote of mead on numerous occasions.
Mead made a name for itself by way of its connection to wedding traditions. Ever heard of a honeymoon? Traditionally, mead was consumed throughout the month-long celebrations following weddings to insure fertility and the birth of sons. According to some mead historians, some customs sent the bride to bed and boozed the bridegroom on mead till he couldn’t stand. He was then dropped off to the bride’s bedside. If a son was born nine months later, compliments went to the mead-maker.
The process of making mead is fairly simple and easier than brewing beer, though it takes a lot longer. Honey obviously comes from the nectar of flowers, and is usually named according to the type of blossom from which the nectar is collected by the bees. While some believe the best meads are made from strong honeys like sourwood, others prefer the delicate flavors imparted by mild honeys like orange blossom. Many meaderies add a variety of fruit and other flavors to give an enhanced or different aspect to the drink. As in all things, a taste for mead comes down to personal preference.
Until recently, mead was mostly relegated to special events, but it’s now starting to show up in bars and stores, working its way back to prominence thanks to the popularity of craft beer. In fact, some craft brewers are partnering with mead-makers or even just making their own (including Cigar City Brewing).
Look for these meads at your local beer and wine stores:
B. Nektar Meadery is currently the biggest name in mead-making. Located in Ferndale, Mich., they’ve been brewing mead since 2006. B. Nektar defies convention with flavors like vanilla, cinnamon and ginger, in addition to more traditional wildflower and orange blossom tastes. They have also collaborated with Tampa’s Cigar City Brewing to make the delicious Camp Braggot Ghost Stories (fermented from both barley and from honey), brewed with lager yeast.
Crafted Artisan Mead is a newer addition to the Florida market. The Mogadore, Ohio, meadery does more beyond its standard tupelo honey mead, including a dry-hopped wildflower mead. Several wineries around the country make honey-wine and mead as well, and I have found some of them to be delicious. While mead is still a very small industry, it’s growing along with the craft beer industry and can be a tasty alternative to beer or wine.
This article appears in Apr 4-10, 2013.