According to NPR.org, Mead, the honey wine of the Dark Ages, is making a come back into the mainstream. Over the past decade, a number of meaderies, places that ferment honey for production, have popped up across the country.
“When I first conceived of the idea of having a business, there were about 30 meaderies nationwide,” says Woody Drake, a resident mead master at Brother Drake’s meaderie in Columbus, Ohio. “Now, they’re pushing 200. That’s only been six years, so that’ll give you an idea of how things are growing.”
The re-emergence of mead has been seen across the country. Ben and Becky Starr opened Starrlight Mead in Pittsboro, North Carolina, less than a year ago after being introduced to the drink at Renaissance fairs. They began to ferment their own honey at home, and started giving it to friends and neighbors as soon as the batches became drinkable.
“We’re still selling about twice as much as expected to do our first year,” says Ben. “It’s been crazy. We’ve run out of almost every flavor twice.”
According to Cary Greene, the chief operating officer of WineAmerica, it’s hard to say how much mead production has actually grown because it is an agriculturally based alcohol. Under federal definition, all agricultural products that are fermented to make alcohol, like apples for cider and grapes for wine, fall under the same umbrella as mead, and separating the individual growth of each product is hard to do.
“It’s astonishing the level of growth we’ve seen in the last decade,” said Greene. “There’s a lot of different products that have changed and gone in and out of fashion over the years. The idea of locality—of using the agriculture of the local area—that is something that’s also caught on in the last decade and it’s a new model for rural economic development. Mead is definitely a part of that.”
