Long before grapes were trodden or barley was malted, someone found a honeycomb soaked with rainwater and left it in the sun. Wild yeast did the rest. That, as far as anyone can tell, is how mead began, and why it has a fair claim to being the oldest alcoholic drink in the world.
The oldest drink we know of
The earliest chemical evidence of alcohol comes from pottery found at Jiahu in Henan, China, dated to around 7000 BC. Residue inside the jars showed a fermented drink made from honey, rice and fruit.1 Honey was the easiest source of sugar our ancestors had. It needed no farming, just courage and a smoky fire, and many historians believe people were fermenting it long before they grew grain or grapes.
The word itself is ancient too. Mead shares a root with Sanskrit madhu (honey, sweet drink), Greek methu (wine), Welsh medd, Lithuanian midus and Old English meodu. All of them descend from a single Proto-Indo-European word, *médʰu. The drink travelled with its name across half the world.
Mead in the Norse world
No culture made more of mead than the Norse. In their myths it was the drink of gods, heroes and poets.
- The Mead of Poetry. The gods created a being of great wisdom named Kvasir. Two dwarves murdered him and mixed his blood with honey, brewing a mead that turned anyone who drank it into a poet or scholar. The giant Suttungr took the mead and hid it inside a mountain. Odin won it back by cunning: he spent three nights with Suttungr's daughter Gunnlöð, drank all three vessels of mead, and escaped in the shape of an eagle. The Norse said that poetry itself is Odin's gift of mead.
- The mead of Valhalla. On the roof of Valhalla stands the goat Heiðrún, grazing on the leaves of a great tree. From her udders flows endless mead, enough to fill the cups of every fallen warrior who feasts in Odin's hall.
- The mead hall. On earth, the mead hall was the heart of a lord's household: a place of feasting, gift-giving, oaths and stories. In Beowulf, the monster Grendel attacks the great mead hall Heorot, and the whole poem turns on defending it.
Mead through history
- India: the Rigveda (around 1500–1000 BC) sings of madhu, the honey drink, in its hymns.
- Greece and Rome: the Greeks linked honey drinks with the nectar of the gods. Roman writers such as Pliny the Elder described hydromel, honey fermented with water.
- The Celts and Britons: the early Welsh poem Y Gododdin tells of warriors who feasted on mead for a year before riding to their last battle at Catraeth.
- Medieval Europe: monasteries kept bees for candle wax, and turned the honey into mead. Mead remained a festive drink across northern and eastern Europe long after wine and beer became common.
And the "honeymoon"? A popular story says newlyweds were given a month's supply of mead, one moon, to bless the marriage. It's a lovely legend, but historians aren't convinced: the word more likely just means that the sweetness of a new marriage wanes like the moon. We still think it's a good excuse to gift a bottle at a wedding. That's why we created The Honeymoon: One Moon of Mead, a wedding gift of four bottles, enough for a cup to share every night of the first moon.
Honey drinks around the world
Wherever there were bees, people found a way to ferment their honey. Some of our favourites:
| Drink | Where | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Tej | Ethiopia | Honey wine flavoured with gesho leaves, which give it a gentle bitterness. Traditionally served in a round-bellied glass flask called a berele. |
| Balché | Mexico & Central America (Maya) | A ceremonial drink of honey fermented with the bark of the balché tree, used in Maya rituals for centuries. |
| Miód pitny | Poland | Polish "drinkable honey", graded by how much honey goes in: półtorak (the richest), dwójniak, trójniak and czwórniak (the lightest). It's protected in the EU as a Traditional Speciality. |
| Midus | Lithuania | Lithuanian mead, often flavoured with herbs, hops or berries. It's one of the oldest drinks of the Baltic. |
| Medovukha | Russia & Ukraine | A traditional Slavic honey drink, often lighter and sparkling, sometimes spiced. |
| iQhilika | South Africa (Xhosa) | A traditional honey beer brewed for celebrations and ceremonies. |
| Hydromel | France & Mediterranean | The old Greek and Latin name for mead ("water-honey"), still used in French today. |
| Braggot | Britain & Ireland | Half mead, half ale: honey fermented together with malted barley. |
The mead family
Meadmakers have names for every variation:
- Traditional mead: just honey, water and yeast, like our God's Nectar.
- Melomel: mead made with fruit, like our Norse Blood.
- Metheglin: mead made with herbs or spices, like our Spiced. The name comes from the Welsh meddyglyn, "medicinal liquor".
- Cyser: mead made with apples or apple juice.
- Pyment: mead made with grapes.
Honey liqueurs
Honey also found its way into spirits: Krupnik, a spiced honey liqueur from Poland and Lithuania; Bärenfang ("bear trap"), a honey liqueur from old East Prussia; and Drambuie, Scotch whisky with heather honey and herbs.
Our part in the story
We research historical mead recipes and recreate them for a modern palate, using locally sourced honey. Every bottle of Mjölnir Mead is one more chapter in a story that's at least nine thousand years old.
Skål!
Reference
- McGovern, P. E. et al. (2004), "Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101(51). Source
