Freddy DiGiovanni tasted mead for the first time in the late 90's at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival and he was immediately hooked. He started making mead in 2016, and since then he has made about 50 different flavors of mead. What exactly is mead? Mead is honey wine. All you need to make it is honey, water, and yeast.
“There are three things you can ferment,” DiGiovanni went on to explain. “Beer, which is made from fermented grain (barley, wheat, rye, or rice), wine, which is made from fermented fruit (usually grapes), and mead, which is made from fermented honey.” Mead, however, is considered the oldest known alcoholic beverage, predating wine and beer by thousands of years.
The earliest evidence of mead dates back to 7000 BC in Northern China. Mead is mentioned in ancient Greek history as a gift from Aphrodite, earning it the nickname "nectar of the gods". Legend has it that the word “honeymoon” came from the practice of giving newlyweds mead to drink in their first month of marriage to help with fertility.
Mead made with fruit is called melomel. Mead made with spices or herbs is called metheglin, which comes from the Welsh word metheglyn which means "medicated" or "healing liquor". This is where the modern word "medicine" comes from.
“I love making mead because it is environmentally friendly,” DiGiovanni said. “It helps beekeepers because they sell more honey and the bees help us by pollinating all the plants we need.” Compared to the grain industry, which requires large amounts of water to keep the crops alive, all the bees need to make honey are some wildflowers that grow naturally with just the water that nature provides. Plus, wildflowers don’t deplete the soil like grain crops do.
DiGiovanni uses local honey almost exclusively and sources it from T Creek Bees in nearby Berryton, Kansas. He grows his own herbs and berries as well. While he mostly makes mead for himself and friends, he said he’d love to start a business selling mead. “I would love to see Topeka have a business that makes a locally sourced beverage,” he shared.
From strawberry mango to chocolate cayenne (Mexican hot chocolate) to ginger and ginseng, he has experimented with a wide variety of flavors. DiGiovanni usually has two to three batches going at any given time. Fermentation time can take from three to six months depending on the size of the batch. “I’m starting my fall and holiday flavors now,” he said.
This year, fans can look forward to a pumpkin pie mead for Thanksgiving and a candy cane hot chocolate mead for Christmastime. “I’m also making an orange-spice mead for Christmas. That is my most popular one,” DiGiovanni added. “It is based on an ancient Yuletide drink called a Wassail, which you may recognize from the Christmas carol ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing’. It’s so yummy!”
If you’d like to try some local mead, you can call DiGiovanni at (785) 806-7257 or email him at mbesau@msn.com.