Winter Mead, a Recipe & a Meditation

 

So let us harken back to yesteryear and make ourselves some Christmas cheer... 

What is mead?

Mead is a fermented drink made from honey. There are different versions of it, with various spices, but the basic components are honey, water, and yeast. The alcohol percentage can range from 3.5% to 23%, depending on how it's prepared. Most natural mead tops out at around 3.5%.

A brief history

I first tried mead at a Renaissance Pleasure Faire, back in 1990. As an English major, I had read about the beverage in various Old English texts such as Beowulf. In that ancient story, there was a building dedicated to the drinking of mead, the Mead-Hall that was named Heorot, where a feast for the warrior Beowulf was thrown after he slayed the dragon Grendel. Here’s an excerpt:

‘Hrothgar’s spokesman spoke thus: ‘And

may the Almighty Father reward you well...May

He guard and keep you safe in His grace. You’ve

brought it about that all people everywhere on

earth will forever honor you. And hold you in

their hearts. You’ve done a great thing, heroic, adventurous.’ 

Then he bade them to give the warrior a golden banner embroidered in gold; there was no finer artifact among men of any land from every corner of the earth. ‘This battle-standard I entrust to your keeping, dear Beowulf. Most often I’ve led a company of warriors around that hall with the drink of mead, swollen with pride, just as did my father before me.’

In the days of Beowulf (6th century Scandinavia) the mead-hall was a gathering place for warriors to celebrate victories, share stories, and to drink mead together.

For me, mead was this magical thing, and it never occurred to me that it could be easy to make. And then, when I recently bought Budmo, a cookbook on Ukrainian cuisine, I found a mead recipe in it! I decided to make it to bring to a friend’s place on Christmas afternoon. So, on December 13th, I started a culture.

From ChatGPT, I read that “Mead also holds a prominent place in various sagas and mythological texts, including the Icelandic Sagas, where it is often associated with celebrations, feasts, and hospitality.”

I also read that mead is believed to be one of the oldest alcoholic beverages known to humanity. It’s found in historical records of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, and Norse. In Norse mythology, the Mead of Poetry was believed to grant poetic inspiration and wisdom to those who drank it. The production of mead was taken up by communities throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and monasteries played a significant role in its production and distribution.

It became traditional for newlyweds to be given a month’s (a moon’s) worth of mead to drink. This was where the term “honeymoon” came from, and it was supposed to bring the couple happiness and fertility.

With all of this long tradition, why did people stop making mead? From what I read on the monkeyboymead website, there was a period when the cost of honey was really, really high. That’s partly the reason. The other reason was that beer was starting to rise in popularity, and it eventually displaced mead as the drink of choice. However, mead is currently enjoying a resurgence. I can really see why.  

Below is the recipe that I used, from two sources: my Budmo cookbook (“Budmo” means “bon appetit” in Ukrainian) and from the “gotmead” blog. There are lots of ways to make mead, and lots of variations.

Ingredients

• 3.5 lb unpasteurized raw honey
  
• 1 gallon filtered or distilled water
• 1 orange or lemon, cut in slices
• a handful of raisins
• a cinnamon stick, crushed
• a few cloves
• a teaspoon of bread yeast

Procedure:

1. Mix the water and honey, and shake or stir it until the honey is dissolved.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir.

3. Pour the mixture into a clean container and cover it. The container doesn’t need to be airtight but must be closed. I used a stockpot and put a rock on the lid. It seemed to work fine.

4. Put the container in a warmish place, and stir the mixture vigorously twice a day. Bubbling is a good sign; it means fermentation is taking place.

5. I just put the stockpot in the dining room, and didn’t worry about the temperature. Our house gets quite cold (in the 50s Fahrenheit) and it didn’t seem to affect the process much. Probably the process would be faster in a warmer setting.

Tips

• Bubbling is a good sign!

• When the raisins float, the fermentation is said to be complete. I started my brew on December 13, and 12 days later, it’s done – Just in time for Christmas dinner!

•  Another great source of info is www.monkeyboymead.com. However, his recipes are much more involved and detailed.

Bubbling is a good sign!

Skol! Cheers!