Mead (pronounced /ˈmiːd/) is an alcoholic beverage, made from honey and water via fermentation with yeast. Its alcoholic content may range from that of a mild ale to that of a strong wine. It may be still, carbonated, or sparkling; it may be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet. Mead is often referred to as "honey wine."[1]
Depending on local traditions and specific recipes, it may be brewed with spices, fruits, or grain mash. It may be produced by fermentation of honey with grain mash;[2] mead may also be flavored with hops[3] to produce a bitter, beer-like flavor.
Mead is independently multicultural. It is known from many sources of ancient history throughout Europe, Africa and Asia, although archaeological evidence of it is ambiguous.[4] Its origins are lost in prehistory; "it can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has observed, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."[5] Claude Lévi-Strauss makes a case for the invention of mead as a marker of the passage "from nature to culture."[6]
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The earliest archaeological evidence for the production of mead dates to around 7000 BC. Pottery vessels containing a mixture of mead, rice and other fruits along with organic compounds of fermentation were found in Northern China.[7] In Europe, it is first attested in residual samples found in the characteristic ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture.
The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda,[8] one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink.[9] Aristotle (384–322 BC) discussed mead in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead.[10] The Spanish-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in De re rustica, about AD 60.
Around AD 550, the Brythonic speaking bard Taliesin wrote the Kanu y med or "Song of Mead."[11] The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall Dyn Eidyn (modern day Edinburgh), and in the epic poem Y Gododdin, both dated around AD 700. In the Nordic Story Beowulf The Northmen drank Honey mead. Mead was the historical beverage par excellence and commonly brewed by the Germanic tribes in Northern Europe. Later, heavy taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently.[12] Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.
The English word mead derives from the Old English medu, from Proto-Germanic meduz. Slavic med / miod , which means both "honey" and "mead," (Slovak, Serbian, Macedonian, Croatian: med vs. medovina, Polish 'miód' pronounce [mju:t] - honey, mead) and Baltic midus, which means "mead," also derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root (cf. Welsh medd, Old Irish mid, and Sanskrit madhu).[13]
Mead was also popular in Central Europe and in the Baltic states. In the Polish language mead is called miód pitny ([ˈmiut ˈpitnɨ]), meaning "drinkable honey." In Russia mead remained popular as medovukha and sbiten long after its decline in the West. Sbiten is often mentioned in the works of 19th-century Russian writers, including Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.
In Finland a sweet mead called Sima (cognate with zymurgy) is still an essential seasonal brew connected with the Finnish Vappu (May Day) festival. It is usually spiced by adding both the pulp and rind of a lemon. During secondary fermentation, raisins are added to control the amount of sugars and to act as an indicator of readiness for consumption; they will rise to the top of the bottle when the drink is ready.
Ethiopian mead is called tej (ጠጅ, IPA: [ˈtʼədʒ]) and is usually home-made. It is flavored with the powdered leaves and bark of gesho, a hop-like bittering agent which is a species of buckthorn. A sweeter, less-alcoholic version called berz, aged for a shorter time, is also made. The traditional vessel for drinking tej is a rounded vase-shaped container called a berele.
Mead known as iQhilika is traditionally prepared by the Xhosa of South Africa.
Mead can have a wide range of flavors, depending on the source of the honey, additives (also known as "adjuncts" or "gruit"), including fruit and spices, the yeast employed during fermentation, and aging procedure. Mead can be difficult to find commercially. Some producers have marketed white wine with added honey as mead, often spelling it "meade." This is closer in style to a Hypocras. Blended varieties of mead may be known by either style represented. For instance, a mead made with cinnamon and apples may be referred to as either a cinnamon cyser or an apple metheglin.
A mead that also contains spices (such as cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg), or herbs (such as oregano, hops, or even lavender or chamomile), is called a metheglin (pronounced /mɨˈθɛɡlɪn/).[14][15]
A mead that contains fruit (such as raspberry, blackberry or strawberry) is called a melomel,[16] 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.[16]
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.
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. There are a number of faux-meads, which are actually cheap wines with large amounts of honey added, to produce a cloyingly sweet liqueur.
Historically, meads were fermented by wild yeasts and bacteria (as noted in the below quoted recipe) residing on the skins of the fruit or within the honey itself. Wild yeasts generally provide inconsistent results, and in modern times various brewing interests have isolated the strains now in use. Certain strains have gradually become associated with certain styles of mead. Mostly, these are strains that are also used in beer or wine production. However, several commercial labs, such as White Labs, WYeast, Vierka, have developed yeast strains specifically for mead.
Mead can be distilled to a brandy or liqueur strength. Krupnik is a sweet Polish liqueur made through such a process. A version of this called "honey jack" can be made by partly freezing a quantity of mead and pouring off the liquid without the ice crystals (a process known as freeze distillation), in the same way that applejack is made from cider.
| “ | Take of spring water what quantity you please, and make it more than blood-warm, and dissolve honey in it till 'tis strong enough to bear an egg, the breadth of a shilling; then boil it gently near an hour, taking off the scum as it rises; then put to about nine or ten gallons seven or eight large blades of mace, three nutmegs quartered, twenty cloves, three or four sticks of cinnamon, two or three roots of ginger, and a quarter of an ounce of Jamaica pepper; put these spices into the kettle to the honey and water, a whole lemon, with a sprig of sweet-briar and a sprig of rosemary; tie the briar and rosemary together, and when they have boiled a little while take them out and throw them away; but let your liquor stand on the spice in a clean earthen pot till the next day; then strain it into a vessel that is fit for it; put the spice in a bag, and hang it in the vessel, stop it, and at three months draw it into bottles. Be sure that 'tis fine when 'tis bottled; after 'tis bottled six weeks 'tis fit to drink.[19] | ” |
Mead features prominently in many Germanic myths and folktales, for instance Beowulf and is popular in works that draw on these. Notable examples include books by Tolkien and Neil Gaiman. Further, it is often present in books using a historical Germanic setting, including the viking era.
See also: Mead of Poetry (Norse mythology)
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MEAD. (I) A word now only used more or less poetically for the commoner form "meadow," properly land laid down for grass and cut for hay, but often extended in meaning to include pasture-land. "Meadow" represents the oblique case, maedwe, of O. Eng. maed, which comes from the root seen in "mow"; the word, therefore, means "mowed land." Cognate words appear in other Teutonic languages, a familiar instance being Ger. matt, seen in place-names such as Zermatt, Andermatt, &c. (See GRASS.) (2) The name of a drink made by the fermentation of honey mixed with water. Alcoholic drinks made from honey were common in ancient times, and during the middle ages throughout Europe. The Greeks and Romans knew of such under the names of 65pojeXi. and hydromel; mulsum was a form of mead with the addition of wine. The word is common to Teutonic languages (cf. Du. mede, Ger. Met or Meth), and is cognate with Gr. ,LOv, wine, and Sansk. mddhu, sweet drink. "Metheglin," another word for mead, properly a medicated or spiced form of the drink, is an adaptation of the Welsh meddyglyn, which is derived from meddyg, healing (Lat. medicus) and llyn, liquor. It therefore means "spiced or medicated drink," and is not etymologically connected with "mead."
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Categories: MAV-MEE | Drink | Agriculture
]]Mead is a fermented alcoholic drink. It is made from honey. Its history is possibly as old as that of beer. It is made by mixing honey, water, and yeast. Some kinds of mead also include spices or fruit. Mead is sometimes called "honey wine".
Archaeologists discovered that people made mead 9,000 years ago. Mead was described in the Rigveda, which is a Hindu religious text. Mead is popular in Central Europe and the Balkans. Mead is also made in Ethiopia and South Africa.
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| | Etymonline reference - Online Etymology Dictionary |
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| | Bartholomews Meadery - Mead (honey wine) and honey at Bartholomews Meadery, Denmark Western Australia |
| | Lurgahsall Winery - Lurgashall Winery: Fruit liqueurs, honey meads and country wines - Discover the quality! |
| | Havill's Mazer Mead - Havills Mazer Mead Company - Makers of Pure Mead Alcoholic Honey Wine |
| | Barat's Mead Page - Barat's Mead Page |
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