Well, it isn’t beer, cider, (grape) wine, or *sigh*, meat. Quite simply, mead is water, honey and yeast. That is it. Sometimes, we get fancy and add other things to the mead, but we will cover that later. Mead is so simple that it has been around for around at least 7000+ years! Chinese pottery vessels dating from 7000 B.C. suggest evidence of mead fermentation that out-ages both wine and beer making it the oldest alcoholic beverage. Traditional mead is just those three things, water + honey + yeast, fermented together. There are other types of meads as well. For instance, melomels are meads made with fruit, a cyser is a melomel mead made with apples and a metheglin is a mead made with spices. There are many more variations with thier own special names.

The very first batch of mead was probably a chance discovery: early foragers likely drank the contents of a rainwater-flooded beehive that had fermented naturally with the help of airborne yeast. Once knowledge of mead production was in place, the honey beverage became globally gulpable, popular with Vikings, Mayans, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans alike. Sometimes called “the drink of the gods,” The Greeks believed mead to be dew sent from the heavens and collected by bees. Many European cultures considered bees to be the gods’ messengers, and mead was thus associated with immortality and other magical powers, such as Olympus-level strength and wit.

Mead’s alcohol content varies but is typically around 5–20%. Its flavor profile ranges from very sweet to very dry, and it is available in both sparkling and still versions. Mead’s flavor varies widely depending on the honey used to make it, along with any additions of fruit and spices. The sky’s the limit for flavor combinations with this versitile beverage.

A single honeybee produces only a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey per day. Every drop of honey is precious. The honey used determines the overarching flavor of the mead, and can vary according to a honeybee’s particular diet of nectar and pollen. Honey is what makes this drink so special.

Here at McGee’s Mead, we make off-dry to sweet meads, incorporating the best ingredients. We use some of our own honeybee’s wildflower honey as it is available, along with wildflower honey from local beekeepers as well as from a Norther California honey supplier in Woodland, CA. Our honey supplier in Woodland (Z-Specialty Foods) is where we obtain our single varietal honeys such as orange blossom and sage blossom honeys. The fruits we use are grown organically here at McGee’s Mead HQ or we buy fruits from local farmers and gardeners when possible. Some things we do have to source from afar such as pineapple, vanilla and cinnimon to name a few. We love to try new things and get creative.