Honey-wine Was Used As Medicine

Honey-wine Thought to Have Medicinal Benefits

Mead is Drinkable Honey, and it is known that it retains the numerous nutritional qualities of honey. The National Honey Board says that mead has similar health benefits of white wine due to the antioxidant characteristics of wine. The immune boosting properties of honey are retained in mead as well.

Hippocrates, the most famous father of medicine, promoted the use of honey in all kinds of healing ways. He also used elderberry tincture as a staple medicine, often combining this elderberry wine with raw honey to make it more palatable. Hidden Legend makes a Wild Elderberry Mead that is healthful as well as delicious!

Healing Powers Attributed to Mead

Honey was a dominant ingredient in many ancient medications and the mythical medicinal powers attributed to mead are because of the use of honey in the mead making process. Honey is considered to be a disinfectant and alcohol can be used as an expectorant. When herbs are added to make various forms of metheglin (spiced mead), the medicinal qualities of the herbs are infused into the mead. Cultures all over the world made their own unique blend of metheglin to cure whatever was needed. Aborigines made mead from rare medicinal herbs and Europeans used over 100 different herbs in some mead that were designed as a complete Cure-All!

Mead is essentially a wine made by fermentation of honey using yeast. It is one of the oldest wines made by mankind and was often associated with health generating, aphrodisiac or magical powers in ancient literature and mythology. In Norse mythology for instance the “mead of Suttungr” could convert a layman to a scholar. In ancient Ethiopia “none except nobility and the highest chiefs and warriors were privileged to drink Tej( mead). Tej was considered to be the most treasured of gifts to be given to visiting royalty as evidenced by the fact that Makeda, Queen of Sheba, carried mead to King Solomon of Jerusalem.

Mead Was the Drinks of Mayans

Mead was a ritualistic drink of the Maya culture. When the Spaniards banned it in order to convert the natives to Christianity, many Mayans began dying off due to the missing health benefits of their mead.

Many languages have a word similar to “honeymoon” which refers to the drinking of honeywine during the first month of marriage. Such a commonality lends acceptance to the fact that many ancient societies believed honeywine was a drink that promoted health, an increased sex drive and the resulting fertility, especially of male offspring and so honeywine became the traditional wedding wine.

Hidden Legend Winery proudly carries on the traditions of the ancient meadmakers. The meads are made with the highest quality ingredients and finished to perfection in a natural way by our winemaker. We believe our wines retain the ancient mystical properties to enrich the lives of those who choose to drink them!