Beverages | Put The `Honey` in `Honeymoon`

Beverages | Put The ‘Honey’ in ‘Honeymoon’
Published on Catersource (http://www.catersource.com)
Beverages | Put The ‘Honey’ in ‘Honeymoon’ [1]
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 14:36
Mead, an ancient drink, is making one of its periodic comebacks.
It’s possible that you haven’t had any mead—alcoholic beverages made from honey—lately; most of
us haven’t. But the mead industry in the United States is one of the fastest growing segments in the
alcohol industry—and it can have special relevance for catering.
“Mead works for weddings because it’s the original toasting beverage,” says David Myers, the owner
of the Redstone Meadery in Colorado. “The idea of the honeymoon stems from the traditions of
drinking honey wine for one full lunar cycle.”
Julia Hertz, head of the International Mead Association, says the wedding market has yet to tap into
the idea of mead, but it’s perfect. “Champagne has New Year’s Eve, but we say mead deserves to be
at every wedding celebration,” she says.
Hertz says there are more than 100 companies in the United States producing mead (and thousands
of amateurs making it for their own use) and more than 300 companies across the globe. Evidence
that mead is growing? Half or more of the U.S. companies began producing mead in just the last 10
years. Myers says mead is now a more than $20 million industry.
Hertz says there are a number of reasons for mead’s increasing presence:
• Craft brewing became big with beer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, “so now you have a more experienced
palate.”
• Mead is a sustainable beverage; it takes less water to produce than grapes. Bees make honey, but
in the process they are pollinating plants and helping maintain the food supply.
• “Amazing aroma and flavor profiles.”
• Many meads are all-natural—and, as a gluten-free beverage, can appeal to people who can’t drink
beer.
Although we may think of mead as a heavy, sweet beverage, that’s far too limited a view. “If grape
wine were a category, it would be a huge category and mead is no different,” Myers says. “Mead is a
wide-ranging beverage. It can be a big, heavy dessert wine, but it can also be dry or sweet, sparkling
or still.” Redstone Meadery makes nectars that are 8 percent alcohol and carbonated—perfect for
toasting, Myers says.
“The styles are so broad,” says Hertz. “It can be just fermented honey, known as traditional mead, or
you can add fruit, herbs or spices. That’s still mead, but it changes up the style.”
Myers says he got into the mead business through his hobby of home-brewing. “I was making beer
and then I got exposed to mead,” he says. “I made some mead and made some more mead and one
day discovered I had a lot of mead.” He opened the meadery about seven years ago.
Today Redstone may be the largest craft meadery in the United States (“and that probably makes us
the second largest producer of any kind in the United States,” Myers says) and has a full spectrum of
mead styles, including some that make great cocktails. Like the Meadmosa, for example, a mix of
mead and orange juice, or the NecTai, which mixes equal parts rum, amaretto and dark rum with a
splash of orange and pineapple juices and a shaker of black raspberry or boysenberry nectar.
Because it has been around pretty much since mankind discovered alcohol, mead has had its ups
and downs, Myers says. “It comes around like clockwork every 2,000 to 3,000 years.” Myers, Hertz
and mead lovers and producers all over the United States hope this is one of the up periods.
Page 1 of 3
Beverages | Put The ‘Honey’ in ‘Honeymoon’
Published on Catersource (http://www.catersource.com)
Mead in catering
While mead is not likely to dislodge wine, beer and cocktails for catered events, it offers the
opportunity to do something so very old that it seems new:
• Suggest mead as the toasting beverage for a wedding reception—complete with a printed
bookmark-size explanation of how honey wine begins the honeymoon.
• Use mead as part of a medieval theme that can make traditional favorites like roast beef and
chicken seem fresh.
• Offer a mead flight of three or four 2-ounce samples with hors d’oeuvre.
• Serve regionally produced meads made with local honey and herbs or fruit as part of a menu
emphasizing regional foods.
Where to find mead
There is mead produced almost anywhere in the world where bees make honey, but finding it
commercially isn’t always easy. “Where you are is where you need to go,” Hertz says. Mead is often
a regional product. “Talk to your alcohol and beverage suppliers; they may have one or two meads,
or they may have been pitched some they can get for you.”
Hertz suggests going to www.honeywine.com [2] and looking for meaderies in your area.
“If you see one, call and ask how to get it to your wholesaler or retailer.”
Other resources for mead include:
www.gotmead.com [3]
a site for home mead-makers.
www.redstonemeadery.com [4],
Redstone Meadery’s site, with recipes and background information about mead, as well as Redstone
products.
www.meadfest.org [5]
the site of the International Mead Association.
Kinds of mead
Mead is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey. According to the International Mead
Society, as long as the fermentation base is at least 51 percent honey, it is considered mead. It may
have, fruit, herbs or spices added. It’s also called honey wine.
There are many styles of mead, including:
• Bracket. A combination of honey wine and ale.
• Cyser. Honey wine with apples.
• Melomel. Honey wine with fruit.
• Metheglin. Honey wine with herbs or spices.
• Pyment. Honey wine with grapes.
• Sack. Very sweet honey wine.
• Traditional. Honey wine without herbs, spices or fruit.
Some mead brewers use only honey from one kind of flower, which gives the mead a distinctive
Page 2 of 3
Beverages | Put The ‘Honey’ in ‘Honeymoon’
Published on Catersource (http://www.catersource.com)
taste (similar to wineries using only certain grapes). The spices, herbs and fruits added often reflect
the region where the mead is produced.
Catersource magazine
May/June 2007
TOPICS
Food & Beverage [6]
Source URL: http://www.catersource.com/food-beverage/beveragesput-%E2%80%98honey%E2%80%99-%E2%80%98honeymoon%E2%80%99
Links
[1] http://www.catersource.com/food-beverage/beveragesput-%E2%80%98honey%E2%80%99-%E2%80%98honeymoon%E2%80%99
[2] http://www.honeywine.com
[3] http://www.gotmead.com
[4] http://www.redstonemeadery.com
[5] http://www.meadfest.org
[6] http://www.catersource.com/topics/food-beverage
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