Whether you’re a casual drinker who enjoys alcohol in a social setting; a connoisseur who delights in drinking only the best of the best or even a teetotaler with no interest in touching alcoholic drink, you’ve probably heard of mead, even if it’s just in passing.
After all, mead is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in recorded history and how has it been recorded!
This delicious drink has graced the table of Egyptians, Greeks, Vikings, Mayans, Chinese explorers and it keeps being a rather popular drink today.
But what is mead? How is it made? What does mead taste like?
To find the answers to these questions and more, keep reading!
More...
What Is Mead?
Mead is an alcoholic drink created by fermenting honey with water and, quite frequently, fruits, grains, spices or anything that might give it a different taste.
It’s believed that the first mead drink ever was purely an accident, with explorers drinking water collected in a fermented beehive.
Regardless of its origin, mead predates wine and beer and it’s part of the world’s history.
What Does Mead Taste Like?
There is no easy answer for this rather loaded question.
Mead, for the most part, tastes like bee honey but there are many ways of making mead, which alters the taste of the drink.
In fact, there are so many different variables that go into mead flavor that we’ll list them all:
- Type of bee: There are different kinds of honeybees and each produces different flavored honey. In part because of their characteristics and…
- Plants fertilized: The taste of honey depends a lot on the flowers bees fertilized and the season it happened. Some plants are available only in certain times of the year, so you bet the taste of honey will change to reflect this.
- Yeast Used: The original recipe of mead is water, honey and yeast. What type of yeast is used to ferment this drink will alter the flavor as well.
- Regional Variants: As we mentioned before, people are fond of adding spices, fruits and even herbs to change the flavor and give them a special hint of something else.
Thus, the best way of guessing what mead is going to taste like is asking about its ingredients!
So, is it sweet?
It can be.
As a honey by-product, it’s easy to expect mead to be super sweet and very thick, which while true for some meads, it’s false for others.
There will be hints of honey in any mead you drink, don’t get us wrong, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be sweet.
Look at it this way; Wine is made with grapes and, while all grapes are sweet, wine can be pretty bitter.
The same goes for mead, except you need to take into consideration the other ingredients used in its creation.
Does your mead has hints of apple? Then expect a slightly sweeter mead than, say, the one that was made with cloves.
Was your mead made with cinnamon? Then expect a slightly spicy taste to it.
Some meads will be sweet, others will be quite dry, some might even be bitter but every single one of them will taste a little like honey.
Why You Should Drink Mead?
Since there’s no easy way to accurately describe the taste of this beverage you might be a little hesitant to try it yourself (even though you absolutely should!), which is why we’ve compiled this short list letting you know exactly why you should give it a try.
- It’s the world’s oldest drink.
Mead was enjoyed by civilizations all over the world before civilization was even a thing. That alone should be enough for you to at least take a sip next time you have the chance.
- It’s back in vogue.
We’re not sure who we have to thank for this, hipsters or pop culture fanatics, but mead is back in fashion and is becoming one of the world’s fastest growing alcoholic drinks.
Soon it will be back on everyone’s table and it’s going to be amazing.
- You Can Brew Your Own!
It might sound complicated, as there are many factors that alter its taste, but when you brew it down to its basic components, making mead is super easy.
That’s precisely why it’s the world’s oldest drink.
- You’ll Help the Bees!
You’ve probably heard about the crisis bee keepers are facing, with bees all over the world dropping dead in massive numbers without any warning.
While scientists are still trying to figure out what’s going on, beekeepers can fight the bee extinction by breeding more bees.
Of course, to breed more bees there needs to be enough honey demand and what better way of raising international honey demand than by drinking mead?
Thank you for reading.
Don’t forget to leave a comment!
Thank you so much for this info. I am currently editing my book which is set in 800 C.E. Ireland. There is a bit of mead drinking the book, and I wanted to describe it’s flavor. I now understand that the flavor is honey-ish, with herbs and spices added. So I will be able to describe it now with more clarity. And I can change it up depending on the local and the mead maker. Very helpful.