Mead is a sweet honey alcoholic beverage that comes in a variety of flavors including very sweet, full-bodied, mead rich and dry. Tasting mead involves choosing which of the different flavors you would like to try before tasting the aroma, appearance and taste of each mead. When drinking mead, you should decide whether to refrigerate it or keep it at room temperature. Choose a drinking vessel. If necessary, you can also serve food with your mead.
Steps
1 Choose the type of mead you want to try. Mead is the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage and is made from fermented honey and diluted water. It is often made with the addition of fruits, vegetables, grains or spices. You can make your own mead at home, buy it from your local meadow or liquor store, or attend a wine tasting. Traditional mead is made from honey, water and yeast.
The mead is made by caramelizing the honey separately before adding the water. This mead has a strong taste of marshmallows or toffee!
Mead is made from fruit or fruit juice and is sometimes spiced.
Mesquite mead is a mead with many spices added. These are usually ginger, orange peel, cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, tea or cloves.
2 Go to an artisan mead bar and try a different kind of meadow. There are over 500 ranches in the United States and many of them have cellars where you can taste different types of mead at once. Mead Johnson is also widely available in the UK and Europe. Contact your local brewery in advance to arrange a tasting. In the USA, Maryland, Oregon, New Hampshire, Illinois, New York and Arizona are popular mead distributors.
Some European countries, such as Poland, even have a mead-themed festival where you can taste many different samples and learn how to make your own.
3 Smell the mead immediately after pouring. Keep the glass still, place your nose over the glass and take a deep breath. Think about how many different aromas you can smell, and the color of the mead (e.g. incense, woody or floral). Make sure you don’t have a cold or have just eaten spicy food, as this can affect your sense of smell.
Look at the glass of mead. The background is white. Tilt the glass slightly to see the color of the mead. Look at the mead directly from above and see the intensity of the color. The color depends on the type of mead you are tasting, and the type of honey and fruit you are using.
From the edge of the glass to the center, you will usually see a slight difference in color.
5Taste a small amount of mead and let it flow over your entire tongue. Gently shake the mead to make it swell, then take a sip from the glass. Make sure the mead touches your entire tongue before swallowing. Determine what you think of the fruit and spice mixture used in the mead.
6 Rate the mead’s aftertaste. Let the taste stay in your mouth and see what kind of tones you can detect. When you first swallow the mead and drink it, it may taste different. Decide what you think about the taste of the mead, including your first impressions of it, whether you like it and if it matches what you thought it would taste like based on its smell and appearance.
1 Mead can be served at room temperature or slightly chilled. Although mead can be served hot or cold, most people now prefer a slightly cooler mead. Check the label, or ask at the ranch what temperature is best for drinking mead. If you’re not sure whether to refrigerate your mead or store it at room temperature, try both methods! Test how the temperature adjusts the taste of the mead. Generally speaking, sweeter meads should be refrigerated to 10-12°C (50-54°C).
2 Choose an 8-10 fl oz (240-300 ml) glass to serve mead in a modern way. Mead is usually served in glass or crystal containers that are egg-shaped, stem-shaped and colorless. The mead glass also has thin walls and is completely transparent. There are no drawings or designs on the glass. Use this special glass to ensure that your mead has the best flavor as it concentrates the aroma. Mead glassware is very similar to wine glassware. You can purchase mead glasses from specialty home supply stores or online.
3 Drinking mead from a trumpet, mug or mezcal is a traditional experience. Mead has been around much longer than glass, which means you need to use a different container to get the traditional mead experience. You can buy traditional mead containers online. The shape of the mead is similar to a bull’s horn, as mead was originally served in a bull’s horn. A beer mug is made of wood, tin or cow horn. a Mazer is a soup-bowl sized drinking vessel made of wood or metal. In some parts of Scotland, traditional friendships and welcome ceremonies are still held, with two people symbolically drinking the same cup of mead.
4 Dry mead with dinner. Strong flavored foods go well with dry mead. Spicy or dark fruity pastures are best paired with dark foods such as steaks, barbecues and stews. Meads made from blackberries or cherries go especially well with dark meats. For lighter meats such as chicken or fish, a light, dry meadow is best.
5 Drink sweet wine with dessert. A light orchard is a great accompaniment to desserts. Sweet mead can also be enjoyed alone as a refreshing drink in the summer. Sparkling mead is also a refreshing addition between courses.
6 Store leftover mead in a cool, dark place for 3-6 months. Room temperature is the ideal temperature for storing open bottles of mead, as storing open bottles in the refrigerator will interfere with the fermentation process and shorten the life of the mead. Unopened honey will keep for up to 5 years. Check the label on the mead to see how long the bottle will last. Do not freeze mead, it will affect its flavor. You can tell when the mead has gone bad because it will have a sour and bitter taste.
