Mead

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About Mead

Wikipedia Article About Mead on Wikipedia

Mead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made of honey, water, and yeast. It is generally pronounced "meed" (IPA: /miːd/). Meadhing (pronounced meth' ing, IPA: /ˈmɛ.ðɪŋ/) is the practice of brewing honey. Mead is also known as "honey wine," although this is inaccurate. Mead is a separate and distinct family of alcoholic beverages, completely apart from beer, wine, liqueur, and distilled beverages.

A mead that also contains spices (like cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg) or herbs (such as oregano or even lavender or chamomile) is called metheglin. The etymon of this word is derived from the Welsh word meddyglyn, meaning "medicinal liquor", as healing herbs were often stored as metheglin so they would be available over the winter (as well as making them much easier to swallow). Slavic miod/med, which means "honey", derives from the same Proto-Indo-European root.

A mead that contains fruit (such as strawberry, blackcurrant or even rose hips) is called melomel and was also used as a delicious way to "store" summer produce for the winter.

Mulled mead is a popular winter holiday drink, where mead is flavoured with spices and warmed, traditionally by having a hot poker plunged into it.