# Mead, the Official Beverage of the Plague Years **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 20, 2000, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984 "2000-03-20T20:21:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Torgo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@Torgo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torgo)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/1 "2000-03-20T20:21:00Z")
## What was mead? Can you still buy it? Is it possible to make it, and if so, how? “My hovercraft is full of eels.” ---
**Author:** ![quadell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/b9bd4f/32.png) [@quadell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quadell)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/2 "2000-03-20T20:28:00Z")
Mead is a fermented honey drink, possibly the oldest alcoholic beverage. It’s quite tasty, although a little hard to find. My father makes it, but I’m not sure how. I’m sure somebody’ll give you further details. Your Quadell ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/3 "2000-03-20T20:30:00Z")
Irish Mist liqueur claims to be a modern refinement of mead: made from honey & herbs. Also, check out Baronjaegger - a liqueur that tastes even more like honey. * * * Your deep sea diving suit is ready, me brave lad. ---
**Author:** ![Oblio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c4cdca/32.png) [@Oblio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oblio)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/4 "2000-03-20T20:31:00Z")
Basically it is fermented honey. Yes, bought some the other day ~12USD/750ml. Yes, if you can make beer you can make mead. * * * A point in every direction is like no point at all ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/5 "2000-03-20T20:32:00Z")
"Dating back to Biblical times, mead is a beverage made by fermenting honey, water and yeast with flavorings such as herbs, spices, or flowers. Mead was popular in early England and, though not widely distributed today, **is still bottled."** – Barron’s _Food Lover’s Companion_ * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/6 "2000-03-20T20:34:00Z")
HEY!!! **Quadell?** It’s **QUADELL!!!** HEY, EVERYBODY! **QUADELL’S** HERE! Great to see you! ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/7 "2000-03-20T20:37:00Z")
Yes, mead is still available. I recently purchased Chaucer’s Honey Mead at a Cost Plus Market in Southern California. My husband likes it. I don’t – it’s too sweet. * * * “The analyst went barking up the wrong tree, of course. I never should have mentioned unicorns to a Freudian.” – Dottie (“Jumpers” by Tom Stoppard) ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/8 "2000-03-20T20:49:00Z")
Yay! It’s Quadell! Come over to MPSIMS, Quadell. We’ve missed you so! ---
**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/9 "2000-03-20T20:50:00Z")
Mead is a fermented beverage made from honey. One can certainly buy mead, although those who have drunk the commercial version (I am not among them) say that it tastes like wet cardboard, which is probably due to oxidation. One can also brew mead. U.S. Federal law allows for 100 gallons/year of any fermented beverage (beer, wine, or mead) to be made by each adult in a household, up to a maximum of 200 gallons/year/household. U.S. State law varies on this point, as may foreign laws. The presence of shops selling brewing or winemaking supplies in a jurisdiction does not guarantee that brewing or winemaking is legal in that jurisdiction. **IANAL** ; this is not and is not intended to be legal advice. To brew mead, add about 15 lb. of honey, 1 Tbsp. of “acid blend” (as use in winemaking), and 1 Tbsp. of gypsum (calcium sulfate) to 1½ gallons of water. Boil for about 15 minutes. Let cool. Add about ½ ounce of wine yeast when the temperature reaches about 80°F. Ferment to completion (when the specific gravity has dropped to about 1.02 to 1.035, the fermentation is complete; also, when one bubble of CO2 rises about every 2 - 5 seconds, it’s as complete _as it’s going to get_; see below). Bottle or keg; the mead needs no aging. Naturally, this is only a very basic recipe, and one of hundreds, at that. One can add damned near anything to this basic mead, to produce all sorts of different tasting concoctions, most of which have specific medieval names (if you add fruit, you have _melomel_; if the fruit are grapes, you have _pyment_; if you add spices to your pyment, you have _hippocrass_, _ad_ nearly _infinitum_). Note that, contrary to the claims of some health-food freaks, honey is almost without nutrients. Yeast can overcome almost any lack, but at the price of reproducing and fermenting _much_ more slowly; fermenting a plain mead may take three to twelve months. “Yeast nutrients” are available; the biological kind are essentially mashed yeast cells, the abiological, various ammonium salts and nitrates. Adding either in the proportion of ¼ to ½ ounce per five gallons of mead can speed your fermentation four to tenfold, and may avoid a “stuck fermentation” (basically, the yeast just give up and go dormant partway through). * * * “I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” _really_ means ---
**Author:** ![quadell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/b9bd4f/32.png) [@quadell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quadell)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/10 "2000-03-20T20:58:00Z")
\*\*\* GRIN \*\*\* phouka, Ike, yep, I’m here. Thanks for the welcome. I’ll be at MPSIMS intermittently. Your Quadell ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/11 "2000-03-20T21:07:00Z")
Our Quadell! What a treat. Yes Mead is widely accepted to be the oldest alcoholic beverage, and I’ve heard claims it is the oldest manufactured one (i.e. not milk, fruit juice, or water) predating coffee and tea. Who knows if there is any truth to it. I have personally brewed a mead that came out quite tasty, and potent. The honey was kinda expensive compared to barley and hops. It is quite easy, and once in a while you’ll see microbrews coming out with a mead. ---
**Author:** ![Suzeanne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Suzeanne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suzeanne)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/12 "2000-03-20T23:34:00Z")
Paula, did you refrigerate the Chaucer’s Mead before drinking it? _shudder_ Do NOT refrigerate mead, unless you really like drinking syrup. The temperature does awful things to the honey suspended in the alcohol, and it becomes sickeningly sweet. Room temp is great. Warm, mulled, is even better. The best commercial mead I’ve had is no longer produced – or, at least, it’s no longer shipped to this country. An English brewer, Merrydown, had _The Best,_ surpassing even some of the excellent home meads I’ve tried. ---
**Author:** ![\_Df](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/7ba0ec/32.png) [@\_Df](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Df)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2000, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/13 "2000-03-20T23:58:00Z")
I have no better resource for this, but according to Michael Crichton in his book Eaters of the Dead, mead is a fermented drink allowed to Muslims (that is, permissible within the rules of Islam). Apparently it is fermented fruit (and/or grains) which are not allowed, _not_ alcohol per se. I’m not sure whether distilled mead would be allowed. Can anyone confirm or deny the Quran’s position on fermented honey? ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hey\_Hey\_Paula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_Hey_Paula)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/14 "2000-03-21T00:00:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Suzeanne: > \*\*Paula, did you refrigerate the Chaucer’s Mead before drinking it? _shudder_ Do NOT refrigerate mead, unless you really like drinking syrup. The temperature does awful things to the honey suspended in the alcohol, and it becomes sickeningly sweet. Room temp is great. Warm, mulled, is even better. > > \*\* ## Yes, we refrigerated it. I think it said to on the bottle, I’ll double check. It also came with some spice packets and instructions to warm it with the spice but we haven’t tried it. My husband really likes sweet wines, for example, plum wine, and hates dry wines. So I’ll let him have his sickly sweet syrupy wines, and I’ll have a nice Chardonnay. That way we’re both happy! “The analyst went barking up the wrong tree, of course. I never should have mentioned unicorns to a Freudian.” – Dottie (“Jumpers” by Tom Stoppard) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/15 "2000-03-21T00:11:00Z")
One of Indiana’s wineries makes Camelot Mead. I don’t know how widely it’s distributed. * * * AskNott "Measure twice, cut once. Dang! Measure again, cut again. ---
**Author:** ![bedboy3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@bedboy3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bedboy3)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/16 "2000-03-21T00:33:00Z")
I thought you said Mead, the Official Beverage of the Plaque years…I’m not sure what i’m supposed to type now…sorry ---
**Author:** ![Glenoled](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Glenoled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glenoled)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/17 "2000-03-21T00:58:00Z")
very recently, I got into brewing, and the best web site I found, for beer and mead recipes, is [http://www.stoutbillys.com/stout/recipen2.htm](http://www.stoutbillys.com/stout/recipen2.htm) I guess one really good one in that site is the Cherry Mead, if you are willing to wait 10 years… (or so the site’s author says) Hmm… maybe I should go prime and bottle my batch of amber ale that’s sitting in the kitchen… 😛 * * * I don’t suffer from insanity… I enjoy every minute of it! ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/18 "2000-03-21T00:58:00Z")
Df, Quran? You mean Koran? ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/19 "2000-03-21T01:11:00Z")
Ummmmmmmmmm, Mead!!! Some years ago I bought a gallon from a nice hillbilly couple who drove down out of the hills to attend a David Bowie concert. They said it wasn’t very strong - they were misinformed. But it was sweet and delicious, and they only wanted $20 for a whole gallon. Tjhey’d probably charge a lot more today! ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2000, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984/20 "2000-03-21T02:33:00Z")
I go to the Renaissance festivals specifically for mead and a turkey leg (or two or three). The funny thing is, even at the festival you often have to ask for the mead at the beer stands. They don’t advertise the stuff, even if they have it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mead-the-official-beverage-of-the-plague-years/8984.md?page=2)