MEAD from hive to table

Mead or Honey Wine is made by fermenting honey with water and yeast. Like beer, mead is sometimes flavored r fermented with fruits, spices, grains, or hops. But it's typically higher in alcohol than beer and more in line with grape wine — typically between eight and 20 percent ABV. Also like wine, mead is produced in a variety of sweetness levels, from bone dry to lusciously sweet and can be still or sparkling.

A pyment is a type of mead where grapes or grape juice has been added.  The first thing makers have to decide is if they want a honey mead with hints of grapes and the complexity that can result or a grape wine with hints of honey, leading to more alcohol because you're adding honey instead of sugar.

Pottery vessels dating from 7000 BCE discovered in northern China have shown chemical signatures consistent with the presence of honey, rice, and organic compounds associated with fermentation.[15][16][17] In Europe, it is first described from residual samples found in ceramics of the Bell Beaker Culture (c. 2800–1800 BCE).[18]

The earliest surviving description of mead is possibly the soma mentioned in the hymns of the Rigveda,[19] one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BCE. The Abri, a northern subgroup of the Taulantii, were known to the ancient Greek writers for their technique of preparing mead from honey.[20] Taulantii could prepare mead, wine from honey like the Abri.[21] During the Golden Age of ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink.[22] Aristotle (384–322 BCE) discussed mead in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead.[23] The Hispanic-Roman naturalist Columella gave a recipe for mead in De re rustica, about 60 CE.

Take rainwater kept for several years, and mix a sextarius[24] of this water with a [Roman] pound[25] of honey. For a weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water with nine ounces[26] of honey. The whole is exposed to the sun for 40 days, and then left on a shelf near the fire. If you have no rain water, then boil spring water.[27]

A mention of "meodu scencu" (mead-cup) in Beowulf

There is a poem attributed to the Welsh bard Taliesin, who lived around 550 CE, called the Kanu y med or "Song of Mead".[28] The legendary drinking, feasting and boasting of warriors in the mead hall is echoed in the mead hall Din Eidyn (modern-day Edinburgh) as depicted in the poem Y Gododdin, attributed to the poet Aneirin who would have been a contemporary of Taliesin. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, the Danish warriors drank mead. In both Insular Celtic and Germanic poetry, mead was the primary heroic or divine drink, see Mead of poetry.

Mead (Old Irish mid) was a popular drink in medieval Ireland.[29] Beekeeping was brought around the 5th century, traditionally attributed to Modomnoc, and mead came with it. A banquet hall on the Hill of Tara was known as Tech Mid Chuarda ("house of the circling of mead"). Mead was often infused with hazelnuts.[30] Many other legends of saints mention mead, as does that of the Children of Lir.[31]

Later, taxation and regulations governing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently.[32] Some monasteries kept up the traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown.