Two weeks ago I met up with some college friends and one of them was raving about mead. We bought a bottle and I was surprised how good it was. This got me thinking, why isn't mead, otherwise known as honey wine, more popular. It is very drinkable (pretty sweet actually) and has a similar alcohol content as wine.
As its name suggests, mead is a wine-like drink that is made from honey with some water and yeast added. It is typically made with a "wine" yeast and can be flavored with any number of flavors in addition to the honey. Also like wine, mead needs to sit for many moneys after the yeast has worked its magic. For example, home brewers will let their mead sit for two months to over a year before consuming. Here is a super short overview of how to make mead at home if you're interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ld4hO_GeP0
As I've begun to explore the world of mead, I've learned that it reaches far more of the world than I expected. For example, I thought mead was exclusively a northern European drink. It isn't. People have found evidence of mead making in China that is believe to date back to roughly 7,000 BC (Wikipedia). This makes it one of the oldest know alcoholic drinks in the world. Much like traditional wine, there is evidence of historic mead making every corner of the world.
