Dec 16, 2016
One of the ancient, traditional beverages consumed at each of the pagan sabbats, and as we approach Yule and the Solstice, Mead; archaic and dialectal "medd"; from Old English "medu",) according to Wikipedia, is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 8% ABV to more than 20%. The defining characteristic of mead is that the majority of the beverage's fermentable sugar is derived from honey. It may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling; dry, semi-sweet, or sweet.
Mead was produced in ancient history throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.
Mead has played an important role in the beliefs and mythology of some peoples. One such example is the Mead of Poetry, a mead of Norse mythology crafted from the blood of the wise being Kvasir which turns the drinker into a poet or scholar.
The terms "mead" and "honey-wine" often are used synonymously. Some cultures, though, differentiate honey-wine from mead. For example, Hungarians hold that while mead is made of honey, water and beer-yeast (barm), honey-wine is watered honey fermented by recrement of grapes or other fruits.
History
In Asia, pottery vessels containing chemical signatures of a mixture of honey, rice and other fruits along with organic compounds of fermentation dating from 6500-7000 BC were found in Northern China. In Europe, it is first attested in residual samples found in the characteristic ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800 – 1800 BC).
The earliest surviving description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda, 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. 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. The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Columellagave a recipe for mead in De re rustica, about AD 60.
Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius of this water with a [Roman] pound of honey. For a weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water with nine ounces 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.
There is a poem attributed to the Brythonic-speaking bard Taliesin, who lived around AD 550, called the Kanu y med or "Song of Mead."The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall Din Eidyn (modern day Edinburgh) as depicted in the poem Y Gododdin, attributed to the poet Aneirin who would have been a contemporary of Taliesin. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, the Danish warriors drank mead. In both Insular Celtic and Germanic cultures mead was the primary heroic drink in poetry.
Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. 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, a well-known example being at Lindisfarne, where mead continues to be made to this day, albeit not in the monastery itself.
Etymology
The English word mead derives from the Old English meodu, from Proto-Germanic meduz, from Proto-Indo-European (honey, fermented honey drink). Slavic med / miod, which means both "honey" and "mead", (Russian, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Croatian: med vs. medovina, Polish 'miód' pronounce [m?jut] - honey, mead) and Baltic medus "honey"/midus "mead", also derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root (cf. Welsh medd, Old Irish mid, Latin mel, Italian miele, Romanian miere, Sanskrit madhu,Sogdian [an Old Iranian language]: muð, Avestan [another Old Iranian language]: maðu, Classical Persian: mul, Classical and New Persian.
Distribution
Mead was also popular in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic states. In the Polish language mead is called miód pitny, meaning "drinkable honey". In Russian it is called Medovukha, which means the same thing as in Polish. Since the 19th century, in Russia, mead has remained popular in the drinks 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 andTolstoy. In Serbia and Montenegro, medovina has been considered a healthy elixir and mentioned often in folk literature.
In Finland, a sweet mead called sima (cognate with the root of zymurgy) is still an essential seasonal fermented product 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. However, the sugar used in modern practice is typically brown sugar, not honey.
Ethiopian mead is called tej 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.
In the USA, mead is enjoying a resurgence, starting with small home meaderies and now with a number of small commercial meaderies.[29] As mead becomes more widely available, it is seeing increased attention and exposure from the news media.[30][31]
Fermentation process
The yeast used in mead making is often identical to that used in wine making. Many home mead makers choose to use wine yeasts (particularly those used in the preparation of white wines) to make their meads.[32] The problem with this is that the honey-based mead does not have a sufficient quantity of nutrients to produce a wholesome mead. To circumvent the nutrient issue, both commercial and homebrew mead makers add specific quantities of diammonium phosphate, vitamin B1, vitamin B12, vitamin B3, biotin, and other key minerals. These are often added based on a staggered addition schedule in order to achieve a high-quality readily-drinkable mead. In some cases, the mead prepared with a staggered nutrient addition can be consumed the moment it is bottled as opposed to waiting over one year for it to age.
By measuring the specific gravity of the mead once before fermentation and throughout the fermentation process by means of a hydrometer or refractometer, mead makers can determine the proportion of alcohol by volume that will appear in the final product. This also serves another purpose. By measuring specific gravity throughout fermentation, a mead maker can quickly troubleshoot a "stuck" batch, the word "stuck" being used to describe a fermentation process that has halted prematurely.
Meads will often ferment well at the same temperatures in which wine is fermented.
After primary fermentation slows down significantly — usually when specific gravity reaches 1.010 — the mead is then racked into a second container. This is known as secondary fermentation. Some larger commercial fermenters are designed to allow both primary and secondary fermentation to happen inside of 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. If the mead maker wishes to backsweeten the product or prevent it from oxidizing, potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate are added. After the mead clears, it is bottled and distributed.
Image: The Bullion Stone, a Pictish image stone depicting a warrior drinking (perhaps mead) from a large horn while on horseback (discovered in 1933, Museum of Scotland,
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