Mead
An ancient fermented honey drink with global resurgence.
Mead, also called honey wine and hydromel, is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. Possibly the most ancient alcoholic drink, its defining characteristic is that the majority of the beverage's fermentable sugar is derived from honey. Mead may be still, carbonated, or naturally sparkling, and can be dry, semi-sweet, or sweet.
- type
- Alcoholic beverage
- alcohol_content
- 3.5% to more than 20% ABV
- earliest_archaeological_evidence
- Pottery vessels from northern China dating from at least 7000 BCE
- earliest_written_record
- Soma mentioned in the Rigveda, dated around 1700–1100 BCE
- key_ingredient
- Honey
- varieties
- Metheglin (with spices), Melomel (with fruit)
Lore & Background
Mead was possibly discovered among the first humans 20,000–40,000 years ago, prior to agriculture and ceramic pottery, due to naturally occurring fermentation and the distribution of honey-producing insects. The earliest surviving written record of mead is possibly the soma mentioned in the hymns of the Rigveda, dated around 1700–1100 BCE. The Abri, a northern Illyrian subgroup of the Taulantii, were known to ancient Greek writers for their technique of preparing mead from honey. During the Golden Age of ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. Aristotle discussed mead made in Illyria, and Pliny the Elder used the name melitites for a grape and honey wine. The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Lucius Columella gave a recipe for mead in De re rustica, about 60 CE.
Reader's Guide
Mead has played an important role in the mythology of some peoples, who sometimes ascribed magical or supernatural powers to it. In Norse mythology, the Mead of Poetry, crafted from the blood of Kvasir, would turn anyone who drank it into a poet or scholar. In Insular Celtic and Germanic poetry, mead was the primary drink associated with heroes and deities. The legendary drinking, feasting, and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the poem Y Gododdin and in the Old English epic Beowulf. Mead was a popular drink in medieval Ireland, and a banquet hall on the Hill of Tara was known as Tech Mid Chuarda. Later, mead was increasingly displaced by other alcoholic beverages due to cheaper fermentable sugars and taxation, but since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a renaissance in mead production around the world, with at least 850 commercial mead producers as of 2025.
Did You Know?
- Mead that contains spices is called metheglin, and mead that contains fruit is called melomel.
- The Chinese word for honey, mì (蜜), is cognate with the English word mead.
- The earliest surviving written record of mead is possibly the soma mentioned in the Rigveda, dated around 1700–1100 BCE.
- Mead was possibly discovered 20,000–40,000 years ago, prior to the advent of agriculture and ceramic pottery.
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