What is the first thought that pops into your head when someone mentions “mead”?

I can tell you the first thing I think of:

Vikings drunkenly swigging around horns full of this glorious substance, telling stories of their bravery and might while toying around with their new spoils.

It’s probably the first thought that enters most people’s brains when they hear mead too — for a good reason.

Mead has been historically attributed to the culture of Vikings.

Vikings drank mead, swung axes and swords and pillaged their way across most (and I mean MOST) of Western Europe.

But they didn’t invent it.

A quick synopsis of what Mead actually is —

Mead (sometimes called honey wine) is an alcoholic beverage (anywhere from 3% to 20% ABV) created with fermented honey and mixed with water.

Sometimes there’s added hops/grains/barley/fruits added to it, but it’s mostly a dealer’s choice.

Mead with fruit added is called a melomel.

Mead with spices added is called a metheglin.

Okay, now that you understand what mead and it’s spin-offs are, back to the history lesson.

Mead goes back over 20,000 years

This stuff is old. Really old.

It was also probably discovered by accident.

We’re not really sure how it was discovered, but there’s a theory that it came from a flooded beehive caused by a thunderstorm, and it fermented naturally.

Then some folks, most likely some hunter/gatherer-types, consumed it through some happy coincidence and discovered it gets you drunk.

With such an ancient history behind it though, there’s no exact way to pinpoint any single origin.

It’s been found all over.

Some of the earliest recorded and discovered history about Mead comes from these civilizations:

• Ancient Chinese were known to have similar beverages around an earlier time with traces of the chemicals from the ingredients found in their pottery in northern China from around 7,000 B.C.

• The earliest known civilization to record their Mead consumption and production at scale were the Sumerians around ~4,000 B.C.

• There was possible mention of it in the ancient Vedic text of Rigveda where there was reference to a “soma”, a ritual drink.

• Traces of Mead were found in King Tut’s tomb in Egypt

When does it REALLY start showing up though?

Enter the Ancient Greeks

Ancient Greece is notorious for inventing or popularizing several things such as democracy, mathematics, philosophy.

The list goes on.

The Greeks ALSO had (and still have) a massively popular pantheon of Gods.

Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, Athena — there’s really too many to name.

Bacchus (also known as Dionysus) was one of the gods they worshipped, and he was the God of Wine. But as it turns out, before he became the God of Wine, he was the God of Mead.

During what was dubbed the “Golden Age of Ancient Greece”, mead was the drink of choice.

Aristotle wrote about mead made in Illiria (Illyria).

Pytheas (ancient Greek writer) talked about a honey-grain drink similar to mead that he discovered during his time in Thule.

Ancient Rome Joins The Battle

Romans love butting into the Greeks business… hundreds of years later.

They weren’t particularly as big of fans of mead as the Greeks were, preferring to drink wine and consuming it daily.

Their culture considered the drink traditional, archaic and frankly unsophisticated.

A few records survive of their discoveries and encounters with this magical drink though:

Pliny the Elder wrote about it in his work “Naturalis Historia” and observed the distinction between wine sweetened with honey (honey-wine) and mead.

Pliny was a mead snob apparently.

Columella, a Roman naturalist, gave a recipe for mead in his work “De re rustica”:

Wales, Old English and Back To The Vikings

We’re going to jump ahead a bit to around 5th/6th century AD and meet Taliesin.

Taliesin was a famous Welsh bard of his time known to sing and write songs and poetry.

There’s one poem popularly attributed to him, called “Kanu y med” or the “Song of Mead”, that talks about legendary feasting and chest-puffing of the warriors in the mead hall Din Eidyn (which is now Edinburgh, Scotland) during his time.

Taliesin was in the courts of several kings of his time, and was later claimed to have been a legendary hero and a companion of King Arthur during his adventures.

If we skip ahead a little further in time, we can find one of the most famous examples of mead in history.

Beowulf.

I still remember having to read this poem in my senior year of high school (I’m sure a lot of you had to as well if you were in the U.S.) My teacher even gave us the challenge of reading it in it’s original Old English text, which just made us all sound like we needed an exorcism.

You ever heard 17-18 year old kids try to read Old English?

You don’t want to.

Trust me.

It’s probably the most famous example of the mead in literature.

Beowulf was a Geatish hero (Geats are modern day Swedes) helping to slay a monster, Grendel, and later the monster’s mother that was terrorizing Heorot — the legendary mead hall of Hrothgar, King of the Danes.

He’d later go home and die during battle while killing a dragon fifty years later.

What a legend.

Legendary is an understatement for this poem, not only is it one of the oldest surviving texts in Old English, but it’s one of the most prominent examples of mead drinking/mead halls.

Vikings in reality didn’t slay a monster and a dragon though.

They were a brutal folk, who plundered, enslaved and murdered other villages and societies to honor their Norse gods.

Norse mythology had a distinct pantheon — Odin, Thor, Freyja and Loki are some of the well-known ones.

Mead was notably present in their worship of the Gods and general Norse culture through several instances, notably:

• It was typically a divine or heroic drink in their mythology.

• The “Mead of Poetry” was a mythical drink that existed in their mythology that stated whoever drinks it can will become a “skald”, or a scholar, who would be able to answer any questions and would gain infinite knowledge… and Odin stole it.

• Norse societies used mead halls as precursors to castles and banquet halls, where the Lords and Kings would live and where their subjects would gather to socialize.

Modern Mead

Mead fell off throughout the middle ages through to modern times.

Some monasteries kept the tradition of making mead as a byproduct of beekeeping hobbies.

But it’s pretty obvious to see that wine is everywhere and has been for thousands of years.

Even now mead is still pretty niche, but you can easily find bottles for mostly affordable prices.

Hell, you can probably find local meaderies in any large city in the US.

I personally don’t drink alcohol anymore, but I’ve had mead in the past and oh boy is it delicious.

You can’t even taste the alcohol.

This isn’t an advertisement for drinking, this is just a neat dive into the history of what’s mostly a forgotten beverage associated with legends.

I now raise my metaphorical horn of mead to you.

Thanks for reading,

Evan