Mead

Mead (

Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius^[32] of this water with a [Roman] pound^[33] of honey. For a weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water with nine ounces^[34] of honey. The whole is exposed to the sun for 40 days and then left on a shelf near the fire. If you have no rain water, then boil spring water.^[35]

Ancient Greek writer Pytheas described a grain and honey drink similar to mead that he encountered while travelling in Thule.^[36] According to James Henry Ramsay this was an earlier version of Welsh metheglin.^[37] When 12-year-old Prince Charles II visited Wales in 1642 Welsh metheglin was served at the feast as a symbol of Welsh presence in the emerging British identity in the years between the Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.^[38][39]

There is a poem attributed to the Welsh

Mead (Old Irish mid) was a popular drink in medieval Ireland.^[41] Beekeeping was brought around the 5th century, traditionally attributed to Modomnoc, and mead came with it. A banquet hall on the Hill of Tara was known as Tech Mid Chuarda ("house of the circling of mead"). Mead was often infused with hazelnuts.^[42] Many other legends of saints mention mead, as does that of the Children of Lir.^[43]

Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently.^[44] Some monasteries kept up the traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.

Etymology

The English mead – "fermented honey drink" – derives from the

Meads will often ferment well at the same temperatures at which wine is fermented, and the yeast used in mead making is often identical to that used in wine making (particularly those used in the preparation of white wines). Many home mead makers choose to use wine yeasts to make their meads.^[48]

By measuring the

With many different styles of mead possible, there are many different processes employed, although many producers will use techniques recognizable from wine-making. One such example is to rack the product into a second container, once fermentation slows down significantly. These are known as a primary and a secondary fermentation, respectively. Some larger commercial fermenters are designed to allow both primary and secondary fermentation to happen inside the same vessel. Racking is done for two reasons: it lets the mead sit away from the remains of the yeast cells (lees) that have died during the fermentation process. Second, this lets the mead have time to clear. Cloudiness can be caused by either yeast^[51] or suspended protein molecules.^[50] There is also the possibility that the pectin from any fruit that is used could have set which gives the mead a cloudy look.^[50] The cloudiness can be cleared up by either "cold breaking", which is leaving the mead in a cold environment overnight, or using a fining material, such as sparkolloid, bentonite, egg white, or isinglass.^[50] If the mead-maker wishes to backsweeten the product (add supplementary sweetener) or prevent it from oxidizing, potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate are added. After the mead clears, it is bottled and distributed.

Primary fermentation usually takes 28 to 56 days, after which the must is placed in a secondary fermentation vessel for 6 to 9 months of aging.^[52][53] Durations of primary and secondary fermentation producing satisfactory mead may vary considerably according to numerous factors, such as floral origin of the honey and its natural sugar and microorganism contents, must water percentage, pH, additives used, and strain of yeast, among others.^[53][54] Although supplementation of the must with non-nitrogen based salts, or vitamins has been tested to improve mead qualities, no evidence suggests that adding micronutrients reduced fermentation time or improved quality.^[52] Cell immobilization methods, however, proved effective for enhancing mead quality.^[53]

Varieties

Mead can have a wide range of flavors depending on the source of the honey, additives (also known as "adjuncts" or "

A mead that also contains

A mead that contains fruit (such as raspberry, blackberry or strawberry) is called a melomel,^[58] which was also used as a means of food preservation, keeping summer produce for the winter. A mead that is fermented with grape juice is called a pyment.^[58]

Mulled mead is a popular drink at Christmas time, where mead is flavored with spices (and sometimes various fruits) and warmed, traditionally by having a hot poker plunged into it.^[59]

Some meads retain some measure of the sweetness of the original honey, and some may even be considered as dessert wines. Drier meads are also available, and some producers offer sparkling meads.

Historically, meads were fermented with wild yeasts and bacteria (as noted in the recipe quoted above) residing on the skins of the fruit or within the honey itself. Wild yeasts can produce inconsistent results. Yeast companies have isolated strains of yeast that produce consistently appealing products. Brewers, winemakers, and mead makers commonly use them for fermentation, including yeast strains identified specifically for mead fermentation. These are strains that have been selected because of their characteristic of preserving delicate honey flavors and aromas.^{[citation needed]}

Mead can also be distilled to a

In Finland, a sweet mead called sima is connected with the Finnish Vappu festival (although in modern practice, brown sugar is often used in place of honey^{[citation needed]}). During secondary fermentation, added-raisins augment the amount of sugar available to the yeast and indicate readiness for consumption, rising to the top of the bottle when sufficiently depleted.^{[citation needed]} Sima is commonly served with both the pulp and rind of a lemon.

An

Mead in Poland and Ireland has been part of culinary tradition for over a thousand years.^[61][62][63]

In the United States, mead is enjoying a resurgence, starting with small home meaderies and now with a number of small commercial meaderies.^[64] As mead becomes more widely available, it is seeing increased attention and exposure from the news media.^[65][66] This resurgence can also been seen around the world in the UK and Australia particularly with session (lower alcohol styles)^[67] sometimes called hydromel^[68] and Mead-Beer Hybrids also known as Braggots.^[69]

Mead variants

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• Acerglyn: A mead made with honey and maple syrup.
• Manobo people of eastern Mindanao in the Philippines. It is made from honey and water fermented for at least five days to a month or more.^[70]
• Balché: A native Mexican version of mead.
• Bilbemel: A mead made with blueberries, blueberry juice, or sometimes used for a varietal mead that uses blueberry blossom honey.
• Black mead: A name was sometimes given to the blend of honey and blackcurrants.
• Blue mead: A type of mead where fungal spores are added during the first fermentation, lending a blue tint to the final product.
• Bochet: A mead where the honey is caramelized or burned separately before adding the water. Yields toffee, caramel, chocolate, and toasted marshmallow flavors.
• Bochetomel: A bochet-style mead that also contains fruit such as elderberries, black raspberries and blackberries.
• Braggot: Also called bragot, bracket(t) and bragget. Welsh origin (bragawd). A mead made from malt in addition to honey. Hops are an optional ingredient.^[8] Contrary to the modern definition, historic braggot was most often a back sweetened spiced ale.^[71]
• Mansaka people of the Philippines made by fermenting galanga roots with honey.^[72]
• Capsicumel: A mead flavored with chili peppers; the peppers may be hot or mild.
• Chouchenn: A kind of mead made in Brittany.
• Cyser: A blend of honey and apple juice fermented together; see also cider.
• TSG
  ): A Polish mead, made using three units of water for each unit of honey.
• Dandaghare: A mead from Nepal, that combines honey with Himalayan herbs and spices. It has been produced since 1972 in the city of Pokhara.
• TSG
  ): A Polish mead, made using equal amounts of water and honey.
• Gverc or medovina: Croatian mead prepared in Samobor and many other places. The word "gverc" or "gvirc' is from the German "Gewürze" and refers to various spices added to mead.
• Hydromel: Name derived from the Greek hydromeli, i.e. literally "water-honey" (see also melikraton and hydromelon). It is also the French name for mead. (See also and compare with the Italian idromele and Spanish hidromiel and aguamiel, the Catalan hidromel and aiguamel, Galician augamel, and Portuguese hidromel). It is also used as a name for light or low-alcohol mead.
• Neolitsea villosa^[73][74]
• Medica/medovica: Slovenian, Croatian and Slovak variety of mead.
• Medovina:
  Bosnian and Slovak for mead. Commercially available in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and presumably other Central and Eastern-European
  countries.
• fermented drink).^[75]
• Melomel: A type of mead that also contains fruit.
• Metheglin: Metheglin is traditional mead with herbs or spices added. Some of the most common metheglins are
  folk medicines. The Welsh
  word for mead is medd, and the word "metheglin" derives from meddyglyn, a compound of meddyg, "healing" + llyn, "liquor".
• Midus: Lithuanian for mead, made of natural bee honey and berry juice. Infused with carnation blossoms, acorns, poplar buds, juniper berries, and other herbs. Generally, between 8% and 17% alcohol,^[76] it is also distilled to produce mead nectar or mead balsam, with some of the varieties having as much as 75% of alcohol.^[77]
• Mõdu: An Estonian traditional fermented drink with a taste of honey and an alcohol content of 4.0%^[78]
• Morat: a blend of honey and
  mulberries
  .
• Mulsum: Mulsum is not a true mead, but is unfermented honey blended with a high-alcohol wine.
• Mungitch:^[79] A party drink made in Western Australia, by Indigenous Noongar using flowers from the moodjar tree(Nuytsia floribunda) are traditionally used to make a sweet mead-like beverage during birak (the first summer in the Indigenous Noongar calendar) the moodjar tree is a very sacred tree to the Noongar peoples.
• Myod: Traditional Russian mead, historically available in three major varieties:
  • aged mead: a mixture of honey and water or berry juices, subject to a very slow (12–50 years) anaerobic fermentation in airtight vessels in a process similar to the traditional balsamic vinegar, creating a rich, complex and high-priced product.
  • boiled mead: a drink closer to beer, brewed from boiled wort of diluted honey and herbs, very similar to modern medovukha.
  • drinking mead: a kind of honey wine made from diluted honey by traditional fermentation.
• Nectars: Typically fermented to below 6% ABV, they often incorporate other flavours such as fruits, herbs and spices.
• Omphacomel: A mead recipe that blends honey with verjuice; could therefore be considered a variety of pyment (q.v.). From the Greek omphakomeli, literally "unripe-grape-honey".
• Oxymel: Another historical mead recipe, blending honey with wine vinegar. From the Greek ὀξύμελι oxymeli, literally "vinegar-honey" (also oxymelikraton).
• Pitarrilla: Mayan drink made from a fermented mixture of wild honey, balché-tree bark and fresh water.^[80]
• TSG
  ): A Polish great mead, made using two units of honey for each unit of water.
• Pyment: a melomel made from the fermentation of a blend of grapes and honey and can be considered either a grape mead or honeyed wine.^[81][82] Pyment made with white grapes is sometimes called "white mead".^{[citation needed]} In previous centuries piment was synonymous with Hippocras, a grape wine with honey added post-fermentation.^[83]
• Quick mead: A type of mead recipe that is meant to age quickly, for immediate consumption. Because of the techniques used in its creation, short mead shares some qualities found in cider (or even
  light ale): primarily that it is effervescent, and often has a cidery taste.^{[citation needed}
  ] It can also be champagne-like.
• Red mead: A form of mead made with redcurrants.
• Rhodomel: made from honey, rose hips, rose petals or rose attar, and water. From the Greek ῥοδόμελι rhodomeli, literally "rose-honey".
• Rubamel: A specific type of melomel made with raspberries.
• Sack mead: This refers to a mead that is made with more honey than is typically used. The finished product contains a higher-than-average ethanol concentration (meads at or above 14% ABV are generally considered to be of
  specific gravity and elevated levels of sweetness, although dry sack meads (which have no residual sweetness) can be produced. According to one theory, the name derives from the fortified dessert wine sherry (which is sometimes sweetened after fermentation) that, in England, once bore the nickname "sack".^[84] In Another theory is that the term is a phonetic reduction of "sake" the name of a Japanese beverage that was introduced to the West by Spanish and Portuguese traders.^[85]
  However, this mead is quite sweet and Shakespeare referenced "sack" in Henry the V, "If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!", as well as 18th-century cookbooks that reference "sack mead" by authors unlikely to have known nor tasted "sake".
• Short mead: A mead made with less honey than usual and intended for immediate consumption.
• Show mead: A term that has come to mean "plain" mead: that which has honey and water as a base, with no fruits, spices, or extra flavorings. Because honey alone often does not provide enough nourishment for the yeast to carry on its life cycle, a mead that is devoid of fruit, etc. sometimes requires a special
  BJCP style guidelines, as well as the International Mead Fest, the term "traditional mead" refers to this variety (because mead is historically a variable product, these guidelines are a recent expedient, designed to provide a common language for competition judging; style guidelines per se do not apply to commercial or historical examples of this or any other type of mead).^{[citation needed}
  ]
• vappu
  .
• Tapluchʼi: a Georgian name for mead, especially made of honey but it is also a collective name for any kind of drinkable inebriants.
• gesho
  .
• Traditional mead: synonymous with "show mead," meaning it contains only honey, water, and yeast.
• TSG
  ): A Polish mead, made using two units of water for each unit of honey.
• Včelovina: Slovak alternative name for mead.
• White mead: A mead that is colored white with herbs, fruit or, sometimes, egg whites.

See also

• History of alcoholic beverages
• Kilju
• Mead hall
• Sahti
• Sima

References