Mead is an alcoholic beverage, made from honey and water via fermentation with yeast. It is usually mixed with spices, fruits, or grain to further enhance the flavor. Thus, mead made from local honey can showcase local flavors of the region’s blooms as well as a meadmaker’s creative craft. Mead predates all other alcohols as it can occur naturally in the wild via a beehive that takes on rainwater.

Though the fermentation and aging process is similar, the biggest difference is that mead is made using honey rather than grapes. While the flavors of grape wine depend on the variety of the grape and the vineyard conditions, the flavors of mead depend on the type of honey and what is added to the honey (spices, fruit).

An unopened bottle of our mead has a high aging potential and can last decades. An opened bottle of our mead can easily last one to two weeks. However once opened, we recommend enjoying them within 24 hours. Remember to keep your mead in a cool place out of direct sunlight.

We use local, raw, unfiltered honey. Our mead is comprised of clover, wildflower, cotton, and soybean. Our raw honey retains the natural enzymes, proteins, and microscopic particles of beeswax and pollen, giving it a richer, fuller flavor.

In Old Norse times when a man and a woman had secured the agreement of their respective families, and to unite and be true to each other a great feast was held in the communal Mead Hall where they publicly exchanged their vows to each other.

After the feast both bride and the groom were absolved of all their communal responsibilities for a period of 28 days; a full lunar moon cycle. During this period they were accorded total privacy and were provided with as much Mead (the potent fermented honey drink) as they demanded in order to stimulate their affections.

This period of time became known as the ‘Honey-Moon’ and is the origin of the custom we observe today.

You will find two main stories involving mead in Norse Mythology. One the creation of mead and the other the Mead of Poetry. The latter showing Odins thieving mischievous side.

The creation of mead begins with Kvasir, the wisest man in the world.  It was his knowledge that was mead. Or rather, his knowledge (his very life force) would go on to become mead.

Kvasir was born of two godly factions (the Aesir, which included the likes of Odin, and the Vanir, which included gods and goddesses like Freyja). At the end of the Aesir/Vanir war, the two sealed a truce by spitting together into a cauldron. That spit became Kvasir.

Now enter two dwarves, Fjalar and Galar who killed Kvasir, then prepped two vats (called Son and Boon) and a pot (called Oorerir) to hold the blood of Kvasir.

The dwarvish brothers mixed his blood with honey and it became the Mead of Poetry, or the Mead of Suttungr, a booze so potent, it could turn any drinker into a scholar (also called a skald). When asked how Kvasir died, the dwarves told the gods that he simply suffocated from his own intelligence since neither they nor their kin were smart enough to ask him any questions.

The Mead of Poetry was then stolen by Odin, who had shape shifted into an eagle and flew back to Asgard. As he did so, however, a few drops fell from his beak to Midgard, the world of humankind, below. These drops are the source of the abilities of all bad and mediocre poets and scholars. But the true poets and scholars are those to whom Odin dispenses his mead personally and with care.

Below is a painting depicting Odin as an eagle carrying the Mead of Poetry back to Asgard with waste mead falling to Midgard.