Honey mead is likened to ambrosia, nectar of the Greek Gods, with qualities of immortality and divine transcendence, beloved by bears and humans. The world's oldest alcoholic brew, mead is made by fermenting honey mixed with water. It's sometimes called hydromel.
Honeymead can be made in a few days under the kitchen sink, or up to several years aging like wine. Alcoholic beverages date back to the Stone Age. Pottery vessels from northern China c. 7000 BCE are among the earliest evidence of intentional fermenting.
Residues show chemical signatures consistent with fermentation of honey, rice, and organic compounds. The pottery jars in the Neolithic village Jiahu, Northern China, reveal a drink of wild grapes, honey and rice, or wine-mead-sake. It's the oldest record of any alcoholic drink.
Sometimes called honey wine, mead has 3.5% alcohol by volume to over 20%. Brewers add ingredients using herbs or spices to make methaglin, a spiced mead. Brews with added fruit are known as melomel. These variations typically have lower alcohol content.
In Europe, signs of honey mead come from residues found in ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800 - 1800 BCE). With the rise of pottery and understanding of fermentation as a food process, mead appears more often in the archaeological record.
Mead can range in alcohol by volume from 3.5% to more than 20% alcohol by volume (ABV). The term "honey wine" is often equated with mead.
Honey wine can also refer to wine with honey added. Unless 50% of fermentables come from honey it's not mead. Mead is not always sweet. It can also be dry, off-dry or semi-sweet, with much early and modern experimentation by artisans. Sweet mead can still be high in alcohol.
Types of Mead include:
Traditional mead: Honey, water, and yeast (up to 14% ABV)
Sack mead (Great mead): higher level of alcohol (14 to 18%+ ABV)
Hydromel: More water than traditional mead (less than 7.5% ABV
Melomel mead (Fruit mead): Fruit added for flavor
Metheglin mead (Spiced mead): Spices added for flavor
Pyment / Clarre: Mead fermented with grapes
Morat: a blend of honey and mulberries
Mulsum: not a true mead: unfermented honey blended with a high-alcohol wine
On the Western Steppe in East Europe, the Abri people are known to the ancient Greek writers for the technique of preparing mead from honey. During the Golden Age of Greece, mead is the preferred drink of common folk as well as wealthy.
Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) discusses mead made in Illiria in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (23 - 79 CE) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead.
Beekeeping goes back to c. 7800 BCE. The ice age is retreating from c. 10,000 BCE and the Neolithic agrarian revolution is in infancy. Flowers appear on fertile, newly exposed land further north, followed by people and bees. It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Traditional mead-making in antiquity is documented by the Spanish naturalist Columella. His record of a recipe for mead appears in De re rustica (On Rural Affairs), c. 60 AD.
Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius of this water with a [Roman - 330 g (11.6 oz)] pound of honey. For weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water with nine ounces of honey. The whole is exposed to sun for 40 days then left on a shelf near the fire. If you have no rain water, boil spring water.
The aging of mead is important to sedentary cultures, bringing a higher trade value. Mead is aged 2-3 years. Early mead-makers or nomadic mead-hunters don't have time to wait. They raid wild beehives for succulent honey and wild mead while on the road.
In wild bee hives mead is made when rainwater mixes with honey. Yeast may be already present or just floating by. It multiplies and breaks down complex sugars to create consumable mead by fermentation within a few days.
This natural process inspires the invention of home-brewed honey mead. Ancient techniques are still used today.
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