Making Mead: Tips from the Pros

Looking to try something new? How about making mead, also known as honey wine. Meads come in many different forms, from dry to sweet, with added fruit (melomel), malt (braggot), spices (metheglin) and so on. But to get a good foundation for your meadmaking, start at the beginning with traditional mead. Heed the advice from these award-winning pros and you’ll be on the right track. Meadmaker: Ken Schramm, Schramm’s Mead, Ferndale, Michigan I like many different honeys for mead. The key element I look for is a really vibrant and attractive aromatic profile. There is a huge spectrum of floral aromatics — on the end I like are things like carnations, roses, and fruit blossoms. They are clear, pleasing, and smell like things you might want to put in your mouth. The spectrum gets less attractive as it goes through the less fruity, to vegetal, to earthy, and even to stuff like daisies that are nearly fecal. Citrus blossom or orange blossom has been a consistent honey that we can get in the quantities we need. We also use some