Delicious Historic Beverage or Spoiled Bee Vomit?

A historical overview of mead: earliest origins, mead in literature and myth, modern rise of mead culture and the misunderstanding of mead as a beverage.

Participants will learn the truth about mead: it was the first high-potency alcohol beverage known to man, and as such gained a mythos and reputation that overshadows the fact that a lot of it tastes dreadful to the modern palate. An examination of the current state of mead making in America along with lessons from standard practices in the wine and alcohol beverage industry will be used to show that meadmaking can adapt to current tastes and move into the 21st century as a living beverage rather than a revered fossil.

Participants will have the opportunity to taste two samples of mead, traditional and modernized, and to decide for themselves which is superior.