Mead and honey in the kitchens of the world

The oldest honey drink

The oldest chemically confirmed fermented drink comes from the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Henan province, China. A team led by Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania analysed residues absorbed into pottery sherds and published the results in PNAS in 2004. Tartaric acid pointed to fruit (hawthorn or grape), compounds characteristic of beeswax pointed to honey, and phytosterol esters to rice. People at Jiahu were therefore drinking a mixed beverage of rice, honey and fruit as early as the seventh millennium BC. Until then, the oldest evidence of a fermented drink had been the find from Hajji Firuz Tepe in Iran, dated to around 5400 BC. It was not yet a pure mead of honey and water, but honey was firmly part of the mix.

In northern Europe, honey drinks turn up in Bronze Age graves. The so-called Egtved Girl, buried in Jutland around 3,300 years ago, had a birch-bark container at her feet. The National Museum of Denmark describes its contents as a fermented drink, most likely a wheat beer sweetened with honey, with cranberries or cowberries and bog myrtle. The residue also held large amounts of lime pollen. Mead (Old Norse mjǫðr) later found its way into Norse myth: according to Snorri's Edda, the ‘mead of poetry’ was brewed from the blood of the wise Kvasir mixed with honey, and whoever drank it became a poet. Odin eventually stole it from the giant Suttungr.

Mead from Ethiopia to the Baltic

In Ethiopia, honey is the basis of tej, one of the country's best-loved traditional drinks. It is made from honey, water and the leaves and twigs of gesho (Rhamnus prinoides), and ferments spontaneously with wild yeasts and bacteria. Gesho gives the drink its bitterness, much as hops do for beer; chemists at Addis Ababa University described its bitter compound and named it geshoidin. Analyses of samples from Addis Ababa, Debre Markos and Bahir Dar showed how varied tej is: alcohol and residual sugar differ markedly between producers, from almost dry to distinctly sweet.

Poland has the strongest legal tie to mead in Europe. In 2008 the European Commission registered four Polish meads – półtorak, dwójniak, trójniak and czwórniak – as Traditional Specialities Guaranteed. The names give away the ratio of honey to water in the must: półtorak is made from one part honey to half a part water, dwójniak from honey and water at 1:1, trójniak at 1:2 and czwórniak at 1:3. The richest, półtorak, must be aged for at least three years under its specification. The specifications also allow spiced and fruit versions, in which fruit juice replaces part of the water.

Mead was also widespread among the Balts. The merchant Wulfstan, whose Baltic voyage was recorded in the ninth-century Old English translation of Orosius, noted that among the peoples he called the Este no ale was brewed but mead was plentiful: the poor and the slaves drank it, while the king and the powerful drank mare's milk. Lithuanian mead (midus) later declined, but in the 20th century private entrepreneurs revived it, including at factory scale.

Gingerbread: honey, flour and spice

Nuremberg gingerbread (Nürnberger Lebkuchen) has been an EU Protected Geographical Indication since 1996. It must be made within the city of Nuremberg itself, although the ingredients may come from elsewhere. The city had two advantages: honey from the surrounding Imperial Forest (Reichswald), worked by forest beekeepers, and spices from the trade routes running through Nuremberg. In 1643 the gingerbread bakers broke away from the bakers' guild and formed a guild of their own.

Pardubice gingerbread (Pardubický perník) has been a Protected Geographical Indication since February 2008 and may be made only in Pardubice. The registration distinguishes filled gingerbread from figurative pieces cut out or pressed into moulds. The Czech word ‘perník’ itself recalls pepper (‘pepř’): it was originally baked from honey, flour and pepper. The first gingerbread maker in Pardubice appears in the records in 1515, but the town's gingerbread became famous only with factory production at the turn of the 20th century.

Toruń, on the Vistula, has been baking gingerbread for centuries. The town lay on a trade route, so imported spices met local flour and honey with ease. A former gingerbread factory now houses the Museum of Toruń Gingerbread. Toruń gingerbread has no EU protected name; in 2021 the Polish agriculture ministry entered it on the national list of traditional products as ‘pierniki z Torunia’, and in 2025 the culture of Toruń gingerbread joined Poland's national inventory of intangible cultural heritage.

Honey and almonds in the south

Almonds and honey were already paired in sweets by the Arab cuisine of the Iberian peninsula. Their most famous heir is turrón from the area around Alicante. Two Protected Geographical Indications registered in 1996 distinguish two styles: soft turrón from Jijona, made with ground roasted almonds, and hard Turrón de Alicante with whole almonds. Both may contain only almonds, pure honey, sugars, egg white and wafer, and honey must make up at least a tenth of the weight. The top quality grade of Jijona turrón requires at least 64% almonds.

On the Greek island of Rhodes, thyme honey, sesame and almonds with citrus peel and spices are made into melekouni. Since December 2017 it has been an EU Protected Geographical Indication. On Rhodes, relatives and friends traditionally make it together before a wedding or christening and offer it to guests, often alongside the wedding invitation. Elsewhere in the Aegean, a similar sesame and honey sweet is known as pasteli.

Mead and honey in the kitchens of the world

The oldest honey drink

Mead from Ethiopia to the Baltic

Gingerbread: honey, flour and spice

Honey and almonds in the south

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