The History of Mead: From Vikings to Your Glass

Mead is the oldest drink people ever made. Fermented honey goes back roughly 9,000 years, which puts it ahead of beer and ahead of wine. It crowned feasts in Norse halls, ran through Greek and Celtic myth, and gave us the word honeymoon. Now it’s in the middle of one of the better comebacks in craft drinks.

Before anyone wrote it down

The first mead probably made itself. Rainwater got into wild honey, wild yeast went to work, and somebody curious took a sip. The oldest hard evidence comes from pottery jars at Jiahu in China, around 7000 BC, with residue of honey, rice, and fruit fermentation in them. After that the trail shows up everywhere people kept bees: Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Greece, the Baltic, the British Isles. Just about every culture with honey came up with honey wine on its own.

The drink of gods and skalds

Nobody loved mead like the Norse. In the sagas, Odin lies and shape-shifts his way into stealing the Mead of Poetry, three vats of fermented honey and wisdom that turned whoever drank it into a poet. In Valhalla the dead drink mead that never empties. Back on the ground, mead sealed real oaths, and a chieftain’s hall got judged by its mead bench. The skald, the bard who kept the hall’s stories, sang for his share of it.

That’s who we named ourselves after. The horn, the long table, the story told well. We get into it more in our story.

The long quiet stretch

So why did it fade? Honey is expensive to make. One hive works a whole season for what a field of barley gives up in weeks. Once grain and grapes got industrialized, mead slid from everyday drink to luxury to curiosity. It survived in monasteries, in Ethiopian tej houses, and in Polish miód pitny cellars while beer and wine took over the taverns.

The comeback, and Oklahoma’s part in it

Craft drinking changed the math. People started wanting small-batch, local, honest things with a story behind them, and mead has about the best story going. Meaderies have been opening across the country faster than at any point since the longship days, making everything from dry traditionals to deep, dark bochets.

Our chapter starts in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma: veteran-owned, built on prairie wildflower honey, opening soon. Get the basics in what mead is, read up on the styles, then grab a seat in the Mead Hall on the homepage.

Questions, Answered

Is mead the oldest alcoholic drink?

By most of the evidence, yes. Pottery from northern China dated around 7000 BC holds residue of a fermented mix of honey, rice, and fruit, which is older than any confirmed beer or grape wine. Honey watered down by rain ferments on its own, so mead probably came before farming did.

Did Vikings really drink mead?

They did, and they built myths around it. Mead poured at feasts, sealed oaths, and starred in the legend of the Mead of Poetry, which was said to hand wisdom and verse to whoever drank it. In Valhalla the fallen warriors drink mead that never runs out.

Where does the word honeymoon come from?

One old tradition says newlyweds drank honey mead for a full cycle of the moon after the wedding, for luck and sweetness, hence the 'honey moon.' Like a lot of mead lore, it's part history and part good story.

Why did mead disappear for centuries?

Mostly money. As farming spread, grain for beer and grapes for wine got a lot cheaper than honey, which takes a whole hive a season to make. Mead hung on in monasteries and folk traditions until the craft movement brought it back.