The World’s Oldest Libation Is At Your Local Bar
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Flickr/Madison Scott-Clary/CC BY
Long before wine and liquor came about, there was mead. The ancient libation is made by fermenting honey and water. It’s believed that the ancient Greeks called mead Ambrosia or Nectar and they referred to it as the “drink of the gods.” It all ties back to the loyal and humble honey bee. Mead, which history calls the ancestor of all alcoholic beverages, made its way around important circles over the course of time. Despite its significant past, somehow it never became fully mainstream. When sugar became the preferred sweetener, mead fell out of favor next to wine and beer. Believe it or not, over the course of the last couple of years, “Game of Thrones” has opened up the mead market since the show is based in a medieval-esque world.
The honey drink declined in popularity when it was discovered that grapes were less expensive and a more predictable source of wine production. While some people might call it wine, mead is actually in a category of its own. It’s fermented with honey, yeast and water and sometimes flavored with different fruits. Many European cultures believed that bees were messengers from a higher power, which lead these cultures to associate mead with immortality and other magical powers. Herbal meads, called metheglin, were thought to improve digestion and help with depression.
Mead varies just as much as honey does. Traditional mead is made using clover and orange blossom honey, but buckwheat, blackberry and wildflower honey are also used to craft the libation. Mead comes in varieties like sweet, dry, still and sparkling. Aside from herbal mead, there’s also cyser (apple-based mead), acerglyn (maple syrup mead), rhodomel (an old-fashioned style mead laced with roses) and braggot (a mead beer that is brewed with hops or barley). This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Mead has been romanticized in classic literature for years and it’s prominent especially in medieval tales. There have been references in books like “The Fellowship Of the Ring” and “The Hobbit” where J.R.R. Tolkien writes, “They sat long at the table with their wooden drinking bowls filled with mead.”
The main thing that sets mead apart from other alcoholic beverages today is the insane amount of history. It’s pretty damn cool to drink the same stuff that the vikings did. There are around 250 meaderies in America so you’re bound to see it on the shelves. As craft brewing and distilling continues to become mainstream, hopefully mead will to. The next time you’re looking for a fun theme for a dinner party, go medieval and crack open a few bottles of the sweet stuff. It’s time for this ancient libation to be in the spotlight.
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