Mead-A Slavonic invention

The Miody Apis website boldly claims that Mead was invented by Slavonic tribes in Poland, which I find hard to believe but makes for an interesting read:

Polish art of honey-based beverage making - 1000 years of tradition

The art of making beverages from honey was initiated by Slavonic tribes that inhabited the Polish land over 1 thousand years ago.

Historians agree that the first attempts to process honey into alcoholic beverages, later to be known as meads, is a Slavonic invention. Already back in 966, Spanish travellers noted that besides ample food, forests and arable land, the country of Prince Mieszko I offered honey in abundance, and Slavonic wines and heady drinks called meads. The development of mead making was determined in the main by the climate which was favourable to wild bees rather than vine. Over 10 centuries ago, Ibrahim ibn Jacob, a Jewish merchant and diplomat from Spain, wrote that "Meads are heady wines drunk in the land of Prince Mieszko." Gallus Anonymous, the first Polish historian who lived at the turn of the 11th c, reported that our country "abounds with gold and silver, bread and meat, fish and honey." Meads were for centuries served only in well-to-do families.

However, their recipes were commonly known, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Mead is considered to be the oldest alcoholic beverage known in Central and Northern Europe where vine could not grow because of adversary climatic conditions.

In Poland mead enjoyed the reputation of "a fine liquor" and was served in monasteries and homes of the Polish nobility. A favourable drink of the Piast aand Jagiellonian dynasties, mead was also extolled by Zagłoba, the famous 17th c. warrior described by Henryk Sienkiewicz in "The Trilogy", who never parted with a demijohn of fine, mature, and very strong mead" to "refresh himself in the time of need". Mead is, thus, the Polish national drink, an important part of our cultural heritage.

during the second half of the 17th c. the production of mead in Poland fell into decline due to the political and economic policy of the partitioning countries.

This situation continued until after the Second World War when the production of meads based on traditional recipes was revived. Cultivating technological traditions in the production of meads is of vital importance. Therefore, the production process requires careful supervision.

Poland is the only country in the world in which mead is produced on an industrial scale. It is probably no wonder that meads are so strongly identified with our country.

Polish art of honey-based beverage making or maliniaki, dębniaki an other types of meads

Polish meads were a highly coveted commodity already in the 15th c. Merchants carried wagon or barge-loads of meads and beeswax to Gdańsk and further to other European countries Such a demand prompted increased production. Mead making establishments or "meaderies" were founded in many towns by experienced brewers known as miodowary. In time, in order to diversify flavour and aromatic properties, fruit juices were added giving rise to maliniaki (raspberry flavoured meads) wiśniaki (cherry flavoured meads) and others. Dębniaki, or meads poured into barrels made of freshly cut oak wood staves, were very popular because of their unique flavour and aroma. Equally popular were Polish and Lithuanian lipce or meads produced exclusively from honey collected in July.

Forest beekeeping and hive beekeeping in historic Poland

The original beekeeping in Poland was largely a forest-related activity which consisted in collecting honey hollows in trees where bees lived. In was not until the 14th c. that beekeeping was moved into villages by bringing tree trunks with bee hollows away from forests. From that moment on the role of this form of beekeeping grew considerably and became highly profitable. This is testified by the volumes of beeswax sold in Polish harbours or given away in the form of rent paid in kind. Beekeeping flourished until the 18th c. wars between Poland and Sweden which brought this activity to ruin.

Mead production process

Sometimes known as honey wine, mead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from diluted honey. The amount of mead and water determines the basic type of mead produced. These type include półtoraki (1.5 part of honey to 1 part of water), dwójniaki (2:1), trójniaki (3:1), and czwórniaki (4:1). However, depending on various kinds of honey, the addition of fruit juices and spices, and various modifications of the fermentation and maturation processes, the variety of meads seems endless. Whatever the type or kind of mead, its production requires particular supervision and care. Selecting the raw material, proper strains of yeast, preparing the barrels, and timing fermentation and maturation processes have an effect on the quality of the final product. Since maturation is key, all currently used production methods are based on traditional recipes and technology. Meads have a unique alcoholic flavour and a high nutritious value due to the high content of natural honey and no added aromas, colorants or preservatives.

Tradition and modernity

Since its establishment in 1932, APIS Apiculture Cooperative in Lublin continues the glorious traditions of the Polish art of making meads. Soon after the Second World War the production of meads was carried out by cooperatives in Cracow, Poznań, Nidzica, Milejów and Lublin providing for the following decades a variety of meads to consumers. The only cooperative that has remained faithful to the traditional art of mead making is here in Lublin. Thanks to the vision of the Cooperative's management and highly qualified staff, the Cooperative continues to invest in modern equipment and to extend the product line in keeping with the quality requirements laid out in the Polish Norm and in European acts on winemaking. In 2004 APIS launched the most modern mead bottling line in Poland, and the investments made during the years 2002-2004 qualified the copany to receive the ISO 9001:2001 quality certificate and the HACCP food safety certificate.

Recipes

Al types of meads sold under the brand name of APIS are produced in accordance with modified centuries old formulae without any artificial aromatic substances, preservatives and sulphur dioxide. During the production process we make every effort to maintain the traditional character of our products. We produce meads of the highest quality and the widest variety from heavy sweet meads with the highest content of honey and alcohol (15-17%) such as Półtorak and Dwójniak through Trójniak with 12-14% of alcohol to light dry meads such as Czwórniak with 9-11% of alcohol.