The Drink That Inspired Hrafnagaldur Odins
(Or, Thor Needs Mead)
By Mark Criden
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Rounding out our rescue team are the beautiful designer Paige Hemmis, shopper extraordinaire Tracy Hutson, interior guru Michael Moloney, Mr.Big Ideas himself, Preston Sharp, and landscape expert Eduardo Xol.
This week, we’re in Asgard at the Bilskinir Palace, home to Thor, the legendary Norse Thunder God. And this week, our challenge is especially tough because Asgard has been decimated by last season’s hit reality show Survivor:Ragnarok, the Death of the Universe.
Tracy: We had a winner, there...
Michael: Yeah, too bad about most life forms...
Here in the great hall we find the Thunder God at breakfast with the beautiful lady Sif.
Thor: Thou were out late last night with Balder and Heimdall, witch. Perhaps I should have thee spend eternity hanging from the giant tree Yggdrasil ...
Sif: Oh, please. It’s not as if we’re exclusive or anything.
Thor notices Paige and Tracy and gives them the once over. Ah, fair human company.
Sif pats the bench beside her, beckoning.
Ty: Thor and I have an understanding. Ah ...so, Sif, looks like the universe collapsed right in this room. Walls blown down, ceilings and floors caved in, furniture splintered, rugs afire. And outside, the pillaging, the carnage in your garden ...
Thor: We await the claims adjuster.
Ty: Let’s get started with this week’s project, why don’t ... Uh, Sif, that’s a little close ...
Sif: Ty, darling, let’s you, me, Preston, and Michael see what needs fixing in the inner chamber, while Thor takes Paige, Tracy, and Eduardo down to a lower level.
Thor smirks. Wench! More tricks than Loki has she. He draws his entire rock-hard, 6 foot 6, 250 pound frame from the table, the magical hammer Mjolnir in a sash at his side.
Paige: Mmm. Is that a war hammer in your belt, or are you just happy to see me?
Down damp, debris-strewn stairs, Thor easily tosses boulders from their path until he comes to a locked iron door. His face lights up.
Thor: ’Tis the most important room in the house, perhaps in all of Asgard. Pray thee its contents are unharmed.
He opens the door and sighs with relief. Racks brim with hundreds of bottles of a golden liquid.
Thor: ’Tis my pride, my joy. ’Tis my mead cellar, largest in all of Asgard. Notice first, mortals, the custom redwood racking, the climate control to maintain ideal cellar temperature ...
Tracy looks knowingly at Paige:Thor, mightiest of all Gods, conqueror of the Jötunar Giants, enemy of the fire-demon Surter, slayer of the dragon Fafnir ...
Paige: is a mead geek.
Upstairs, in the bed chamber, Lady Sif lounges provocatively, beckoning the three men into the room.
Sif: I trust you brought your tools.
As Ty, Preston, and Michael set to work repairing sections of wall and ceiling, Sif reaches to the nightstand and grabs her own decanter of mead.
Sif: Long before grapes were made into wine, humans and gods alike drank honey wine, also known as Mead, an elixir with a glorious and storied history. The Celts drank it. Ancient Greeks called it nectar and ambrosia. And Scandinavians have a special fondness for it, with legends of Valkyries giving honey wine to newcomers in Valhalla, the heaven of Viking warriors.
Back in the cellar, Thor pulls a cork, takes a long gulp, and passes the bottle to Eduardo.
Thor: Mead was especially popular with the Poles, who called it miód, meaning honey. The Romans, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Incas, and Aztecs used mead, both in festivals and as a religious drink. And, of course, Mr. Golden Touch, King Midas, drank mead.
Eduardo feels Thor’s bicep: He’s not the only one with a golden touch.
Upstairs, Sif urges the decanter on the three men, who do their best to resist.
Michael: I’ve heard tales of an enterprising goddess using mead to lower the defenses of her intended victim, so that she could have her way with them.
Sif takes another sip and licks her lips: Lies, all lies. Here, have a sip. Open wide ...
Preston: Uh, speaking of wide, can’t mead have a wide range of flavors?
Sif: Ah, yes, Mr. Big Ideas. Both the flavor and the color of the honey depend on the kind and variety of the flower that the nectar comes from. There are over 300 distinct varieties of honey and many are suitable for making mead. Clover honey, for example, is light in color and mild, while honey from buckwheat is much darker and stronger.
Ty: And word is that mead can be sweet, medium-sweet, medium-dry, or dry, depending on the amount of residual sugars at bottling, right? I hear some producers even offer sparkling meads, which resemble French champagne.
Sif gets up and draws very near to Ty, gazing fondly at his pecs.
Sif: Adding fruit to mead at the time of fermentation produces a drink called Melomel. Although any fruit can be used, the best-known melomels are Cyser, which is mead mixed with cider, and Pyment, or mead mixed with grapes.
Meanwhile, in the cellar, Thor pours a drink for Paige: Sweet maiden, mead that contains spices (like cloves, cinnamon, or nutmeg) or herbs (such as oregano or even lavender or chamomile) is called Metheglin. One of the most famous is capsicumel, or chili pepper mead.
Paige mops her brow: Can it get hotter?
Thor: Ah, yes it can. Mulled mead is a popular winter holiday drink, where mead is flavored with spices and warmed, traditionally by having a hot poker plunged into it.
Eduardo swoons and faints.
Back in the bedroom, Michael does his best to repair drywall as Sif does her best to corner him. She pours glasses from other canisters and offers them around.
Sif: Try this, handsome ones. One is Tej, or Ethiopian mead flavored with leaves and bark. The other is Bracket, which is malted barley and honey, like a cross between Mead and Ale.
In the cellar, Thor passes a glass to Tracy, who is looking for escape. He smiles and leans in close: Fair lass, wouldst thou be surprised if I told you that mead has long been considered an aphrodisiac? For a month after a wedding in Babylon 4000 years ago, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon.
He turns leeringly to Paige, now busy trying to revive Eduardo. She thinks quickly: Thor, how do you serve mead?
Thor: Sparkling Mead and Bracket are best served chilled, like Champagne, but normal Mead and Metheglin are at their best served slightly chilled like white wine. Melomel, on the other hand, should be served only slightly cooler than room temperature, like red wine.
In the bedroom, Ty, Preston, and Michael have barricaded themselves in a closet; Sif jiggles the handle and bangs on the door. The three look desperately for a means to escape.
Sif: You whelps! I have so much to teach you. For instance, although honey itself is nearly immortal, most meads drink best at two to three years of age, although melomels are best consumed within one to two years of bottling, since the fruit character tends to diminish over time.
Ty: Distract her. Ask her if Meads have vintages.
Sif: Meads do not have vintages, fool! Does a honeybee tell us when he’s made his nectar?
Sif pries open the door only to find the closet empty; another door allowed them to escape. She sighs, as Thor appears.
Sif: We used to be so popular, Thor.
Thor: Aye, mead too was once popular. But then, in the eighteenth century, sugar became the sweetener of choice and mead and other drinks made with honey fell out of favor. Mead then became a drink of the working classes....
Sif: The hunky working classes.
Thor: Thou hast been reading Germaine Greer again, wench.
Outside the palace, a van speeds away. Inside, Ty drives like a madman behind the wheel as the others crouch in the back. Eduardo is still out, a dreamy smile on his face.
Paige: Today, Ty, mead is enjoying a resurgence, with nearly 100 commercial meaderies operating worldwide, and countless thousands of home meadmakers concocting the brew in their homes.
Ty looks over his shoulder: And be sure to join us next week as we visit Zeus and Hera at their mountain home in Olympus, Greece.
Meads To Try
I hate tasting notes. I hate writing them and I especially hate reading them. Conjuring up a string of adjectives to describe a sensory experience is usually an exercise in reductio ad absurdum. When describing mead, absurdum gets left in the dust.
Most of the meads tasted this fall by a band of intrepid Buffalo-area Vikings were drinkable, some were good, and a few, delicious. But none of them were complex. Fermenting honey into wine may have been one of our species’ oldest ideas, but it ranks with the wheel rather than the digital processor in the panoply of human invention. Grapes produce a cornucopia of aromas and flavors when their sugar is converted into alcohol, but spiked honey vibrates in a much more narrow range.
This is not necessarily bad: the more complicated the matching cuisine, the simpler the wine should be, and with the virtual riot of sensations that the Thanksgiving table offers, a simpler beverage is all to the good. But it also leaves mead drinking an essentially binary experience: Sweet or Dry, Sparkling or Still, Traditional or Fruited, Good or Bad.
The following meads are all recommended; while not easy to find at retail (except for Lakewood) all of the listed meaderies will ship. Check out their web sites.
Lakewood Vineyards (Watkins Glen, New York) produced two of the best meads tasted. Also available at Premier and other local retailers. Way cool labels, too. (lakewoodvineyards.com)
• Seifu’s Tej (sophisticated, delicious blend of honey and hops) ($8)• Mystic Mead (elegant, delicate honey blend. A winner!) ($8)Camas Prairie Winery (Moscow, Idaho) provided an incredible string of highlights for our tasting group. (camasprairiewinery.com)
• Palouse Gold from Star Thistle Honey (delicate, sweet, balanced crowd pleaser!) ($9)• Tej (amazing combination of honey and Abyssinian hops; exotic, spicy,and smooth) ($9)• Strawberry Mead (like strawberry shortcake in a glass) ($12)• Huckleberry Mead (A favorite of the day, balanced and classy) ($12.50)Heidrun Meadery (Arcata, CA) Beautifully packaged, fascinating sparkling meads, each from a different honey (heidrunmeadery.com).
• California Avocado Blossom (dry and refreshing) ($16)• California Orange Blossom (sweet and luscious) ($16)Winehaven (Chisago City, MN) (winehaven.com)
• Semi-sweet Mead (delicious, floral, light) ($10)Honeywood Winery (Salem, OR) (honeywood.com)
• Mead (mellow, honeyed, rich but dry) ($10)• Honeysuckle Peach (perfect-for-fruit desserts)($9)Bargetto Winery (Soquel, CA) (bargetto.com/chaucers)
• Chaucer’s Mead (very sweet, intense, and rich. A standout!) ($14)• Chaucer’s Raspberry Mead (explosive but less sweet than the above; would bea knockout with chocolate/raspberry dessert) ($14)Other decent Meads tasted include Sky River Dry Mead and Semi-Sweet Mead (both $9.50) (skyriverbrewing.com). We also tasted four meads from the Long Island Meadery in Holbrook, which were practically undrinkable, ranging in flavor from bubblegum to charcoal. Likewise, wines from the Earle Estates Meadery on Seneca Lake could not be recommended.
Mark Criden, a non-profit executive, is the former chair of the Buffalo Branch of the IWFS.
You can reach him at mcriden@yahoo.com.
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