You ever wonder where the term honeymoon comes
from? I'm about to tell you. See in the Middle Ages when a young couple got married their family would give them a moon, or a month's worth of honey mead. And then the young couple would go off,
frolick, and make merry for a few weeks and hopefully come back with a bun in the oven. So that's what we're making today. Not a baby, mead. So whether you're a Saxon warrior positioned
in your shield wall or a marauding Norse viking, get ready for that sweet sweet, taste of
alcoholic honey - mead. This time on Tasting History. Follow on Instagram @ tastinghistorywithmaxmiller Follow on Twitter @ TastingHistory1 So a bunch of people have been asking me to make
merch or merchandise. So there is some that I just got up in the bar beneath this video, but you know what I would love some ideas about what kind of stuff you guys want. What I should have made,
because i'm not very good at that kind of stuff. Anyway, merch below more to come. So today's recipe comes from the 13th century Tractus Manuscript Folio 20r. Catchy title. Now usually I read the
full recipe, but this recipe is rather long and rather wordy so i'm just going to give you the
hits, but I am going to put the full translation in the description if you care to read the entire
thing. "For to make mead. Take one gallon of fine honey and to that four gallons of water and heat
that water till it be as 'lengh' then dissolve the honey in the water. Then set them over the fire
and let them boil and ever scum it as long as any filth riseth theron and then take it down off the
fire and let it cool in another vessel till it be as cold as milk when it cometh from the cow. Then take dregs of the finest ale or else barm and cast it into the water and the honey and stir all well
together... and so let it stand three days and nights... Then draw it from the dregs as clear as thou may
into another vessel clean and let it stand one night or two, and then draw it into another vessel
and serve it forth. So anyone who makes mead on the regular today is probably thinking 'that just
doesn't really sound right to me' because mead usually ferments for weeks not days, and then ages
for months not a couple nights. So this is a quick! quick mead and you know probably they
would have let it age longer if need be. I don't know. This mead is probably going to
be not as alcoholic, very sweet, and cloudy, but we shall see. Now the recipe also gives
us instructions on how to make this mead 'eglyn' by adding various herbs such as: hyssop,
bettony, moonwort, heartstongue, and white horehound just to name a few. Kind of sounds like the
three Weird sisters at the beginning of Macbeth, ooh! Now eglyn is a shortened version of the word
meddyglyn meaning healing mead because in Medieval recipes usually when there were herbs added it was medicinal because that was the medicine that was most commonly available. And even today any
mead that is made with herbs and spices is called a meteglin, very similar to meddyglyn. There are actually dozens of terms for all different kinds of mead depending on what you're adding into it,
and how alcoholic or how much honey is in it there are tons, and i'm not going to go into them
all right now but there are some great resources books in the video description if you really want
to kind of get into to mead, and how to to make all the different various forms. But for today we're
sticking with the traditional three ingredients: water, don't use distilled water for this. Mineral
or spring water that's the way to go. Honey. And ale dregs or dried ale yeast. So the recipe calls for four gallons of water and one gallon of honey, but that's a lot so I am going to be
making one gallon of water and a quart of honey, and really as long as you stay with the four to
one ratio you're going to be good to go. Now as for the yeast if you can get ale barm or dregs, fantastic, but if not you can go ahead and use dry yeast. The thing is in either case they didn't
tell you how much to use and it's really going to depend on how active the yeast is so you're
kind of just guessing. What I ended up doing was about two tablespoons of barm and then
I put it into a little bit of water with a drop of honey just to make sure that it was was active,
and it was. If you're using dried yeast it's hard to say. Usually for a gallon you would
use like a pinch but because we're only doing this for three days, fermenting it for three days
I'd use a little bit more maybe like a third of a packet, maybe. So first if you're worried about
bacteria you can go ahead and sterilize all of the tools that we're going to be using though in
the 13th century they wouldn't have really cared though they actually kind of have a way around
that so we'll we'll get to that but it can't hurt to to sterilize your equipment. So what you'll
need is: a large pot for boiling, a large container for fermenting, another container for aging for all
of two nights, and preferably like a bottle with a small opening so you can fit a bubbler or airlock. That lets the carbonation out without other things getting in, and then you can also probably use a
siphon or a funnel depending on how you plan on getting the mead from one container to the next
uh siphon our funnel will definitely make things easier. So following the recipe we heat our water
until it is 'lengh'. Now i could not find anywhere a translation. Middle English, Old English
anything for the word 'lengh' so if anyone knows great, otherwise it really probably just means
rather hot because what you want to be doing is to dissolve the honey in there so it's not just
falling to the bottom. So add the honey and give it a mix until it's dissolved then boil the honey
and water mixture called must. Now a lot of modern mead makers would not boil it at this point, but I
think that that's that's part of the way that they got rid of bacteria that might have been in the
water in the Middle ages. If you boil it it'll get rid of most of the bacteria. Also this thing is
going to have alcohol and a ton of honey in it so there's not going to be a lot left alive no matter
what so you're probably pretty safe. As it boils skim off any scums that forms at the top though you
really shouldn't have that much scum unless you're using honey directly from honeycomb because that
can have dirt or pieces of wax in it and that's really what's going to be bubbling up to the top. Once boiled take it off the fire and pour it into the second vessel. Hopefully doing a better job
than I did because I spilled a bunch and it got really, really sticky for like days afterward. I
just, I couldn't get it to be non-sticky. Then you got to let that honey and water mixture cool until
it is the temperature of milk when it comes out of a cow about 98 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 degrees
Celsius. If you put yeast in there before it gets about to that, it could kill the yeast so just wait
it can take a while, but just wait. Then pour in your dregs, or barm, or yeast then cover the top, not
airtight, and leave it be out of direct sunlight. You could even put it like in a closet. Now by
the next day the mead should be in what I call the Don Ho phase of mead making because you'll
see tiny bubbles starting to rise to the top. Oh sometimes I hate myself for those
kinds of jokes, but I don't care. It makes me laugh. xD Now if you were
leaving it for longer than three days it would actually start to get clear in this
beautiful golden colored mead that we know and love so well, but in three days that ain't gonna
happen. So after three days go ahead and transfer it, try not to get too much of the yeast at
the bottom to that next container or bottle. Then stick a bubbler in it and let it sit for a
couple more nights. Now i'm actually making two little bottles out of this gallon, one that I'm
going to try you know in in two nights and then one that i'm gonna hold on to for maybe six months
or so i wanna see how the flavor changes. It's not going to have any more fermentation time from that
first fermenting but the aging hopefully might mellow out the flavor, I don't know we'll see. So what inspired me to make mead today was actually because of a video game that's coming out today or
the day that this video will air called Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Not associated with them in any
way but I'm still super excited because it's like a history based game of like my favorite time
period: Saxons and Vikings, you know fighting it out. So i'm assuming that there's gonna be mead in
there somewhere, though when you think of you know Saxons and Vikings yes you think of mead, but
mead actually got its start way before that. The earliest evidence for mead making actually
comes from pottery found in northern China dating from about 7000 BC. There was residue from honey
and the compounds associated with fermentation. And there are mentions of alcoholic drinks made
with honey throughout Chinese literature including The Song of Mead by Su Shi, in the 11th century. In central Europe similar residues have been found in the pottery of the Bell Beaker culture which
roamed Bronze Age Europe more than 4 000 years ago. But the earliest written mention of mead actually
comes from the ancient Indian 'Rigveda' which says "I have tasted the sweet drink of life knowing
that it inspires good thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme that all the gods
and all mortals seek it together calling it meath." High praise indeed for this our mead. Now the drink that
they're talking about in the Rigveda is actually known as soma which is a honey drink that probably
also had some hallucinogens or something in it because it would give visions of the gods um so
hopefully not what I'm making today. And while this is the first mention that we have of mead being
associated with the gods it is far from the last. The Minoan culture produced mead and credited it to their mother goddess Potnia, whose priestesses were named Melissa meaning bee. The love that the
Minoans had for this drink passed on to the other Greek civilizations. They also used these same
Melissae as priestesses for Artemis and Demeter, and the drink eventually made its way to the Roman
empire. Columella gives us a recipe in 'De Re Rustica' as does Pliny the Elder in 'Naturales Historia'. "There is a wine also made solely of honey and water. For this purpose it is recommended
that rain water should be kept for a period of five years. This beverage is known as 'hydromeli'
and with age acquires the flavor of wine. It is nowhere more highly esteemed than in Phrygia." Now aren't you glad I said to you spring water rather than make you go get rain water and wait
five years, you're welcome. Now after the fall of Rome, our mead journey takes us north to Britannia
or Britain. In one Welsh poem from around 550 AD called 'Kanu y med', we hear of that iconic
drinking vessel for mead, the mead horn. "May Maelgwn of Mona be affected with mead, and
affect us, from the foaming mead horns with the choicest pure liquor, which the bees collect,
and do not enjoy. Mead distilled sparkling, its praise is everywhere." So the mead in that
poem is sparkling which is interesting because based on what I've seen with our mead, ours is
also going to be sparkling. In another Welsh poem "Y Gododdin" we hear the story of a battle where those
fighting were rather hung over from too much mead. "Men went to Catraeth at morning, their high spirits
lessened their life-span. They drank mead, gold and sweet, ensnaring for a year the minstrels were
merry." Their high spirits lessened their lifespan, how Welsh. Anyway I wanted to actually thank a
Welshman, The Welsh Viking here on Youtube named Jim for helping me with a bunch of the research
and the pronunciation as well as letting me know that the Welsh word for drunk is 'meddwi' which
literally means meaded, I love that. Now at about the same time that these Welshmen were lessening
their lifespan with mead the Irish were drinking it too just across the water on the Hill of Tara,
where the banquet hall was known as Tech Mid Chuarda, the mead circling house. Which I can only imagine
is rather similar to Hrothgar's mead hall, Heorot in Beowulf, where Grendel would rip apart
drunken Danes. "They would willingly wait on their wassailing-benches. A grapple with Grendel
with grimmest of edges. Then this mead-hall at morning with murder was reeking, the building was bloody at breaking of daylight. The bench deals all flooded dripping and bloodied. Now let us pause
right there while I beseech thee if you have never read Beowulf, or if you only read it under dress
in high school or college go get a copy because it is so great, and it's super quick to read
it's not very long i'm going to put my favorite translation in the description, but really any
translation works (don't watch the movie) but it's fantastic and whoever wrote it, we don't know,
but whoever wrote it really was the greatest of of poets, or skáld, and must have gotten
that from Odin because Odin made good skálds, and that brings us to Norse mythology. Following
a war between two factions of the Norse gods they decided to call a truce in the same way that we
do today by spitting into a giant cauldron. Well, out of this godly saliva rose a creature, a man-god not really specific named Kvasir, and he was all-knowing he was the most brilliant poet, and and
had all of the knowledge that there was to be had. Even the gods would ask him questions that they
needed to know. Well when Kvasir wasn't busy he liked to go down to Midgard where the humans lived, and pass on some of his knowledge. How kind of him. Well one day he came across two dwarves named
Fjalar and Galar who said "Come on in we'll make you some mead", and that's what they proceeded to
do, they made him some mead. They slit him open with knives and drained his blood into three vats,
then added honey to it to create mead. How dark, but that mead supposedly gave some of his power if
you drank it so it was called 'The Mead of Poetry.' But old Kvasir was of course missed by the gods
who were like 'hey dwarves where's our smart guy?' and the dwarves were like 'oh no, you know what
he came over and he was so smart that he choked on his own knowledge and died' and they believed
him. Well these two jerk dwarves weren't done with their little killing spree, because a little while
later they killed a couple a husband and wife who were giants, and the giant son was like 'no' so he came over and took the dwarves and set them on an island that was about to flood so they would die, but the dwarves were like 'Hey if you don't kill us you can have this Mead of Poetry that
we've got', and the the giant was like 'Okay', and let them go and now their part of the
story is completely done, it's kind of weird. But the giant didn't drink the mead himself
he actually just kind of hoarded it and gave it to somebody else to protect and when Odin,
played by Anthony Hopkins, found out he decided 'I need this Mead of Poetry' because Odin prided himself on his love of knowledge and poetry. Anyway after a bunch of scheming and shape-shifting Odin was allowed to have three sips, one from each vat of the mead, but joke's on them because an
Odin sip is like the sip that I'm gonna take if you offer me a drink of your cocktail, he drained it dry. All three vats in three little sips or huge sips I guess. Then he turned into an eagle and with
the Steve Miller band playing behind him flew home to Asgard and regurgitated the mead into his own
three containers, but he dropped a few drops down to Midgard where the humans live and those drops
are said to be the beginning of all mediocre poetry in the world, because to be a great poet or
Skáld you have to get your mead directly from Odin himself, and I'm pretty sure that whoever wrote
Beowulf got their mead directly from Odin himself. Now the mead that I'm making today I'm not going
to guess is going to make me into a great poet but maybe if you drink enough of it and you kind of
get a little chatty you'll think you're a great poet because that has definitely happened to me
in the past with mead. Anyway let's give it a shot . So once two nights have passed pour the mead into
that final clean vessel, and it's ready to drink. Oh, oh dear, oh no, no, no... okay... :( Well that was embarrassing My uh ale horn seems to be leaking, that's
not good. Nobody likes a leaky ale horn. So instead I'm using a beer mug, that's okay. So let's go ahead and try this mead It smells very yeasty still
which I guess is to be expected. *_* I like it! You know what it's not as -
when I poured it it was effervescent but when you drink it you don't
really get it. It's pretty flat um there's definitely some alcohol in there, though
I don't know how much, because I didn't um you can find out there are ways you can test
it and everything, I didn't do it. Definitely alcoholic though, and definitely super sweet. I
think it would mellow if i gave it some more time which i'm going to do obviously not fermenting
but I am going to leave it in that second bottle maybe six months, maybe in six months we do another
episode on something else, and I drink the rest of the mead and we see how it goes. Anyway go make
yourself some mead it's actually not that hard just take some time, and enjoy life, and enjoy
poetry, and I will see you next time on Tasting History.
[Viking drinking from a horn] [Acknowledges this] "cool" [starts playing"White Snow in the Spring Sunlight" with a tagelharpa]
I thought it was the Tocharians of the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang) that invented mead. It's within China's modern borders but it wasn't a part of Chinese civilisation at the time. The Tocharian name for mead was met, and the Old Chinese was mjit derived from that. (If you haven't heard Old Chinese, I highly recommend it!)
Tocharians were were white people, they were Buddhists, and they spoke an Indo-European language. They populated what is now Xinjiang before the arrival of the Turkic Uyghurs around the year 700. That's why many modern-day Uyghurs look part-white.