Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

I believe we have reasonable proof of the first Massive negative publicity campaign ever waged. It was waged sometime in the Middle ages and it persists to this day.

It is the campaign against the drink Mead.

Most people, if they ever even heard of Mead think of a bunch of vikings swilling down an almost unpalatable drink. It is thought of as being crude, frothy or even lumpy!

The new movie Beowulf even perpetuates this misconception. Most of the movie takes place in a mead hall and in the center of the hall is a big vat of a rather distasteful looking drink. The celebrants in the hall dip their mugs in and imbibe of the drink.

The truth of the matter is that mead is an extraordinary delicate and delicious wine that is brewed with honey rather than grapes. And this formula creates something very light, very sweet, and quite delicious.

If you have been following this blog you know that I have been brewing some mead and this past weekend I bottled up a nice batch. I have put them in a variety of different bottle colors and shapes so I could gauge their appearance and it seems to me that the clear bottles really show off the beautiful golden color.

So, seeing that this is such an amazing drink who would possibly want to launch a negative ad campaign against it? My first reaction would be to point a finger at the up and coming wine growers of the middle ages. They would be very motivated to tarnish the reputation of mead thus getting people to drink more grape based wine.

But, I don’t think this is the case! I think we can point the finger directly at the big producers and drinkers of mead themselves -yup the vikings themselves launched a campaign against their favorite drink and here is why they did it;

The Vikings used to adventure all around the Atlantic Ocean all the time and they had created plenty of maps. And the one big thing about their maps is a bit of trickery that they did in that they knew a land that was very lush and very green and yet they called it “Iceland”; while at the same time there was a whole land mass that was almost completely ice covered and they called it “Greenland”! This bit of trickery was to throw other explorers off course. Seeing the choice between greenland and iceland which would you want to explore? And in reality you were exploring the wrong one because iceland was very green and greenland was very icy! LOL -

Those vikings were a sneaky bunch and I think they did the same thing with their mead. It was a wonderful and delicious little secret and I think they threw people off course and made people not want to explore it or try it by creating the stigma that it was a nasty and horrible little drink! ROFL - Gotta hand it to them. Their Middle ages marketing campaign worked because hundreds of years later our maps are still marked wrong and we all still think of mead in the wrong way.

All I can say is take a look at this bottle of mead that I made. Isn’t it gorgeous, delicate, and beautiful? Get yourself a bottle and try it for yourself. It will bring a smile to your face just knowing that a bunch of vikings who lived hundreds of years ago had pulled the wool right over your eyes!

Anyhoo, if you want to learn more about mead I have a website where I go through the whole process of how to make it yourself here

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