Mead Making

Mead is the world's oldest fermented drink, and all it takes is honey, water, yeast and a little patience. Here you'll find everything that goes into the must: pure honey, mead-friendly yeast strains, the nutrients honey needs to ferment cleanly, plus acids, stabilizers, clarifiers and flavorings for fruit and spiced meads.

Mead has a strong claim to being the oldest alcoholic drink in the world. The earliest chemically confirmed fermented beverage, found in 9,000-year-old pottery jars at Jiahu in China (around 7000 BC), was a mix of honey, rice and fruit. Honey was treasured in ancient Egypt, where it was offered to the gods and fermented honey drinks appear in old texts, and mead went on to be enjoyed in ancient Greece and Rome, in medieval Europe, and in the Viking mead halls of Norse legend.

Today mead is enjoying a comeback. According to the American Mead Makers Association, the number of commercial meaderies in the U.S. grew from about 60 in 2003 to more than 500 in 2025.

Mead uses the same fermenters, airlocks and bottling gear as wine. You'll find all of it in our Equipment and Wine Making sections.