The Supermarket Gourmet

by Buck Reed

Mead Maker

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“When Odin drank of the song-mead he composed poems which for sweetness and grandeur have never been surpassed. He was the first poet and knew well the magic of the mead. For the source of it was secret, and was discovered only by Ivalde, the watchman of the primeval fount from which life first came and by which life is ever sustained. Then was it carried to the beauteous car of the moon, and from thence to the regions of fire. There it was won by love mixed with wrong, and when the high god who descended to the deeps drank of it, he soared as an eagle to heaven, which he filled with song. From heaven has song descended upon earth, and in song are all the sufferings which were begotten over the mead.”

~Teutonic Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie

Yes, I am a Mead Maker. I have actually been making it for 30 years and have been teaching sporadically over that time. I have also been mak ing beer and wine and teaching those skills on a more consistent basis. We actually ran a class regularly for almost 20 years, teaching students the fundamentals of beer making. Although I know way more about making beer, I still call myself a Mead Maker.

So, what is mead? The simple answer is: It is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey. I consider it the stuff that civilizations were built on and legends were made. If you looked in the glasses of Odin, Dionysus, and Maeve, you would certainly find mead. Weather you called it Paradise, Valhalla or Heaven, you will find a river of mead flowing through it for all good people to share and revel in.

Love and war were both influenced by this drink throughout histo ry. The Vikings and Picts went into battle with mead as their secret wea pon. Before a raid, Vikings laced their mead with wormwood, a very strong hallucinogen, that put them into a frenzy. When a couple got married, the tribal mead maker provided them enough mead for 30 days. This gave us the term “Honeymoon,” which noted the time and the honey the drink provided. Nine mon ths later, if a male child was produced, the Mead Maker was regarded as a skill ed craftsman. Many Mead Makers boasted that they had up to a 50 percent succe ss rate of male babies over female.

Traditional mead making was, and still is, a time-consuming proj ect. It can take up to a year to get it in the bottle, and if aged properly , can take months and sometimes years to get it right. Because honey doesn’t go bad, it can age for much longer periods than beer or wine. And because it is magic, the aging process will only make it taste better.

In our class that we will offer in the fall at the Flying Barrel , we will shorten the time we will need to get it in the bottle, but not necessarily the aging time. We will be offering our students all the knowledge and techniques needed to produce quality mead in their home, and they will have two case s of mead to take home to start their journey.

Mead to me is part science, part art, and as our ancestors beli eved, a whole lot of magic. I can feel it as we make it and drink it. And maybe we can make a connection to the people who believed that if all things are no t considered sacred, than nothing is sacred. We could all use a little of that in these times.

Did you like this article? Or do you have an idea for another a rticle? Contact me at [email protected] with any comments or if you ar e interested in participating in our class.