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If I had a nickle for everytime I've heard someone say 'I've tried mead, I don't care for it', I'd be a rich woman. A lot of people don't realize just how diverse mead is. You can make it out of honey and just about *anything*, it seems. Here's a quick list of just the main styles of mead:

Mead Styles

  • Mead (M.'ee.d)  – made with honey, water and yeast optionally with flavoring ingredients
  • Hydromel  (Hy'.dre.mel) – the French name for mead
  • Sack mead (Sak') – a sweeter mead, with more honey
  • Melomel (Mel'.o.mel) – mead made with fruit or fruit juice
  • Metheglin (Me.theg'.lin) –  mead made with spices and extracts
  • Morat  (Mor'.at) – mead made with mulberries
  • Acerglin (Ace'.cerg.lin) – mead made with maple syrup
  • Pyment (Pie'.ment) – mead made with both honey and grapes
  • Hippocras (Hip'.po.cras ) – honey, grapes, and spices
  • Cyser (Sy'.zer) – honey and apples or apple cider (apple juice in Europe) Can also be made with peach, cherry or pear cider
  • Braggot  (Brag'.got)- honey and malt, sort of a mead-beer
  • Oxymel  (Ox'.ee.mel) – mead mixed with wine vinegar
  • Rhodomel  (Road'.o.mel) – honey with attar, a rose petal distillate, or rose petals
  • Capsicumel (Caps'.sic.cu.mel) – honey with chile peppers
  • Omphacomel (Ohm'.pha.co.mel) – mead and verjuice, the juice of unripe grapes
  • T'ej (T'.Ej (Ej as in Edge)) – T'ej is honey, water and hops. It is the national drink of Ethiopia, and has a unique taste
  • Bochet (Bo-SHAY) – sack mead that has been burnt or charred
  • Rhyzamel (RISE-uh-mel) – mead made with root vegetables
  • Lactomel (LACK-toe (as in "big toe")-mel) – mead made with milk

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Mead has many names, as does honey. Cultures and civilizations all over the world have made and drunk mead. Forest Scott, owner of the Mead Maker's Page has collected the following names of mead and honey in various countries. Also thanks to Eric Kingsepp for his insight into Old English variations, and Cat Houghton for pointing out that ayahuasca is in fact *not* mead, but a toxic hallucinogen used in religious ceremonies.

Mead by Any Other Name…..

  • aguamiel – Spanish mead
  • balche – Mayan mind altering mead made with balche bark
  • chouchen – Breton (France) mead
  • hidromel – Portugese mead
  • hydromel – French mead
  • idromele – Italian mead
  • med – Bulgarian and Ukranian
  • meddeglyn or myddyglyn – Welsh spiced mead
  • mede – Dutch mead
  • medovina – Czech and Slovak mead
  • medovukha – Russian mead
  • medu – Old High German/Old Saxon/varient of Old English, Mercian and Northumbrian
  • medus – Lithuanian and/or Latvian honey
  • meis – Eritrean mead
  • meodu – Old English, West Saxon
  • met – German mead
  • midus – Lithuanian mead
  • miòd – Polish mead
  • mjød – Danish and Norwegian mead
  • mjöd – Swedish mead
  • mõdu – Estonian honey beer
  • nabidh – Arabic mead
  • sima – Finnish mead
  • t'ej – Ethiopian mead (since about 400 B.C.)
  • ydromeli – Greek mead

Here are some other names for mead that I've found in my researches:

  • madhu – in the Sanscrit Vedas
  • nectar or ambrosia – in the Greek and Roman mythologies
  • alu – Prussian for mead
  • methe – Ancient Greek for mead
  • mede – Frisian, and Low German
  • metu or mitu – Old HIgh German
  • meth – German
  • melikatos – old Greek (morphed into hydromeli in present)

Honey Around the World

  • ngarlu – Australian Aboriginal
  • tapli – Georgian (in the Caucasus)
  • mel – Welsh, Brazilian, (and others)
  • hunaja – Finnish
  • honig – German
  • honning – Norwegian
  • honung – Swedish
  • mjod – Russian
  • miel – Spanish
Vicky Rowe
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