Mead – Honey Wine Between Hall and Myth

From honey, water and time comes the oldest intoxicating drink of the North. But mead was more than a drink – it was community, and even poetry.

Mead – fermented honey wine – is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks of humankind and deeply rooted in the North. Long before wine came from the south, mead was the drink of the hall.

How Mead Is Made

The basic recipe is simple: honey is diluted with water, yeast sets off the fermentation, and over time a golden wine forms – dry or sweet depending on the honey. Herbs, berries or spices gave each mead its own character.

The Drink of Community

In the mead hall, mead was served from drinking horns. Drinking together sealed alliances, honoured guests and commemorated the dead. Yet the Hávamál already warn of moderation.

“Drink from the mead-horn in measure; speak what is useful, or be still.”Hávamál 19, translation after Henry Adams Bellows (public domain)

The Mead of Poetry

In myth, mead is even the source of poetry: the mead of the skalds was brewed from the blood of the wise Kvasir; whoever drank of it became a poet. Odin stole it from the giants and brought it to gods and humans. So ‘mead’ became an image of poetry itself.

Cups high and Skál – and always in moderation.

Mead in mythology

In Norse mythology there is the mead of poetry, brewed from the blood of the wise Kvasir: whoever drank of it became a poet and sage. Odin himself stole this mead from the giants – a sign of how closely mead was linked with wisdom and poetry.

How mead was brewed

Mead arises when yeast ferments the sugar of the honey. Roughly the rule of thumb still holds of about one part honey to three parts water. Herbs, berries or spices could change the taste – but there are no surviving original recipes from the Viking Age.

Drinking culture and sumbel

People drank from horns and cups, often in a solemn round. At the sumbel the horn circulated, toasts were made to gods and ancestors and vows were sworn. "Raise your cup and skål!" – the drink was a social, almost sacred act.

Experience mead today

Whoever wants to feel the spirit of the old halls at home will find our laser-engraved clay cups and crystal-glass tea-light holders fitting – for one's own little sumbel by the home fire.

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