Not Wine, Mead!

Not Wine, Mead!

by Liv | Published on April 25th, 2007, 4:58 pm | Food

If you like sweeter alcohol, especially in looking for a dessert drink, you might want to try my favorite: Mead. Chaucer's is a terrific brand, and they sell it for $12 a bottle out at World Market on High Point Rd. Wine made from honey -- yum!

That's all it took, for me to try Mead. I've been gently exploring the finer side of life trying to learn the art of drinking. I actually got the chance to try mead about 2 months ago, but never actually wrote about it since my life has been so-o busy.

I knew I had heard about mead before, I mean anyone whose read Shakespeare or quoted MacLiv knows that our dear English brothern of years past had chosen mead as the drink of choice before adorning women's clothes and climbing on stage. The truth is I never gave any thought to what mead was, or exactly how much this beverage has been apart of history. How modern culture has but all but forgotten about it, is really a odd mystery.

You see Mead is Honey. Just as wine is fermented grapes, Mead is made from fermented honey. It's roots actually come from back in the stone age when honey and natural yeast mixed naturally and became wine.

Mead would eventually become the "nectar of Gods", and would be drank from the skulls of men in Nordic society. Julius Caesar attributed his sex life to Mead, possible making it the first Viagra.

What really make it laughable that most people don't know about mead, is the fact we still see it's influences in modern culture. Mead has been attributed to weddings and the word "honeymoon". The idea of fertility, getting drunk off your ass to consummate your marriage is all apart of the tradition of mead.

Yes the sweet golden beverage is Good. Good enough for to easily be my newest, and coolest favorite alcoholic drink. The brand Chaucer's I tried stirs up images of the Canterbury Tales and make you want to say "thy" and add "ith" to the the end of every word. It's also the perfect beverage to practice reciting your old English. The following always seems to give me flashbacks of 9th grade English class:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour,

Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his half cours y-ronne

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open yë

(So priketh hem nature in hir corages),

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende...

Bottom line... Mead is good. Embrace the drink of the Gods, and if you've never tried it, run, don't walk and taste the beverage that created the first several hundred years of human history.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Bottom line... Mead is good. Embrace the drink of the Gods, and if you've never tried it, run, don't walk and taste the beverage that created the first several hundred years of human history.

One caveat, however. Not all mead is created equal.

There's a shop in Chapel Hill that sells mead -- very nasty stuff. I forget the brand, I'll have to look it up. But if that's your first taste, you'll be turned off for certain. And once, we found Irish mead at a liquor store just outside of Carowinds. I rather liked it, but it was about 5 times as concentrated as Chaucer's, so it would peel paint. Still, if you like LIKKER, I expect Irish mead would suit you.

Salud!

[Sanjuro]

Sigh... let me know when you're done slumming it, Liv.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Sigh... let me know when you're done slumming it, Liv.

Snob. You sure can tell when someone's gone totally "Hollywood..."

[A Person]

Mead has been attributed to weddings and the word "honeymoon". The idea of fertility, getting drunk off your ass to consummate your marriage is all apart of the tradition of mead.

The mead - honeymoon connection is in the words of an expert etymologist full of hooey Modern mead is likely very unlike traditional mead. Honey ferments almost completely so the result is alcoholic but not sweet and with little flavour. Modern mead has the yeast killed to stop fermentation and then more honey added to make the drink sweet.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

The mead - honeymoon connection is in the words of an expert etymologist full of hooey Modern mead is likely very unlike traditional mead. Honey ferments almost completely so the result is alcoholic but not sweet and with little flavour. Modern mead has the yeast killed to stop fermentation and then more honey added to make the drink sweet.

So in other words, they have greatly improved the product. Nifty. Such a pleasant way to go slumming.

[Sanjuro]

Buncha slummers. OOOH, let me get on my steed and fight a dragon before drinking my mead...OOOHHH...

[Stilgar]

I'd like to make a few clarifications;

It's roots actually come from back in the stone age when honey and natural yeast mixed naturally and became wine.

Modern mead is likely very unlike traditional mead. Honey ferments almost completely so the result is alcoholic but not sweet and with little flavour. Modern mead has the yeast killed to stop fermentation and then more honey added to make the drink sweet.

The first record of any sociaty making beer is the egyptians, well into the bronze age, not the stone age. As honey will not ferment if left in the sun (like grapes or other fruit juice), the creation of mead is a deliberate and specialized act, requiring quite a bit of knowledge, to brew.

Honey is a desicant, this means that it will kill the yeast if not diluted properly with water. The problem with making mead is not that the yeast so fully converts the sugars that it makes the alchohol tasteless, but that the yeast never activates or activates an is then killed by the honey, preventing fermentation. Even if fermentation is halted (or completes the cycle and stops naturaly) Adding a sweetner just before bottleing does not noticably increase the sweetness or alter the flavor of the beverage (uless a tremendous ammount is used, resulting in an almost syrup like cordial), instead, the yeast converts it to alchohol and CO2, which is left in solution causing the bottled product to naturaly self carbonate.

If you make your own, the commonly found recipes will recommend three pounds of honey to one gallon of water and a fermentation period of three to six weeks followed by six months of aging (resulting in a small mead that has little taste, less alchohol and poor aroma), a better tasting mead will actualy use six to eight pounds of honey to one gallon of water, and an aging time of three years (resulting in a large mead that is indeed "nectar of the gods"). Whether you carbonate or not is imaterial (but I think the experience is enhanced by the bubbles)

Mead would eventually become the "nectar of Gods", and would be drank from the skulls of men in Nordic society. Julius Caesar attributed his sex life to Mead, possible making it the first Viagra.

At no point is it actualy recorded that the nordic peoples drink from the skulls of the dead. Most likely this was a fabrication or interpretave error based on the shape of nordic communual drinking vessels (a shallow wide bowl-like cup held with both hands). And to be fair, the romans learned of mead from the germanic tribes (the original nordic people). As for it being the "First Viagra", I think it more likely that it should be called the "First Rohypnol" due to it's stupifying effects and great taste (compared to the local wine, which is something similar to Grappa nowadays).

Buncha slummers. OOOH, let me get on my steed and fight a dragon before drinking my mead...OOOHHH...

No no, Sanjuro, you drink the mead first. What, you didn't think I was gonna get up on a horse (damnably stupid creatures) and fight a giant lizard that breathes fire sober did you?

Wassail!