On mead

[Unnamed_Source]

[ Split from this thread. --Karyuu ]

]I don't know where you get your records from...

I like quoting wiki cause I don't have to pay for it, but you go ahead and pay for Britanica if you want, I for one will quote the free stuff.

The first known description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda,[1] one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the "Golden Age" of Ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink.[2] Aristotle (384–322 BC) discussed mead in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead.[3]

~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

Also read up on the rest of the mead entry..

Not quite sure how you got Budweiser, Bloody Mary and a Screwdriver from Generic terms.

whether you it is a mixed drink or a straight shot, if you think that the name is not important, then I cannot see how less generic a Black Russian would be then a shot of Vodka. We're talking about a differance of 500 years between the inception of  Vodka and of the mixed drinks that followed, not that much, yet  vodka still has the aura of Russia when ever it is named, Like wise whiskey entails of pubs in Scottland or Ireland, Tequila brings up memories of a dusty old cantina in Mexico. But I cannot concieve how you could have no problem with internationally recognized ethnic drinks and yet be opposed to decentralized mixed drinks, At least Screwdrivers and Martinies don't conjure up images of a certain peoples and ethnics. Granted, martinies make me think of Sinatra and 007, I'll give you that.

Let's just call it a differance of opinion, you order your shot of whiskey and I'll order a mytie and we'll give cheers the next time we're at the bar.

[Draklar]

The first known description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda,[1] one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 1700–1100 BC. During the "Golden Age" of Ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink.[2] Aristotle (384–322 BC) discussed mead in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead.[3]

~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

And conveniently enough this obvious distinction wasn't made before the Roman Empire started spreading across most Europe? Before Roman Empire started importing stuff from other nations? Hint?

Now you say vodka is associated with Russia, but in the same way mead is associated with vikings. Still, settings team has nothing against mead. And while we're at it, let's look at the setting. Diaboli will obviously be associated with Italics, Klyros with Far East, Enkidukai with Arabs and Ynnwn with Germanic tribes. Just looking at their architecture and/or clothing and/or mentality. Are they all ooc now?

[Unnamed_Source]

And conveniently enough this obvious distinction wasn't made before the Roman Empire started spreading across most Europe? Before Roman Empire started importing stuff from other nations? Hint?

OK if you really need one, most probably Alexander's troops brought the stuff over after conquering Inda. Like all new knowledge, it spread by trade and eventually Europe and north Africa  knew the craft. the same thing happend with wine and beer. Or are you now going to tell me that beer is only associated with Germans?? Did you know the Egyptians made beer too?

but in the same way mead is associated with vikings.

to you, mead might be associated with vikings but by the time the northmen got a hold of it, it was all over Europe and Asia. Again we are talking over 2000 years between the two, when it was first recorded and your vikings. Again, how old does an alcoholic drink have to be where it's origin is lost to history. Obviousely mead falls under that catagory, Unlike Whiskey, Vodka, Tequila, Gin, bourbon, Chamagne, etc, because chronologically speaking they are modern brews compared to wine, mead, or beer, which come from the anchient world. ie The Egyptian Pyramids vs the Eiffel Tower, a differance between a thousands of years vs hundreds.
 

Still, settings team has nothing against mead. And while we're at it, let's look at the setting. Diaboli will obviously be associated with Italics

Italics? OK I see the toons stretching out their backs all the time but don't recall ever seeing them walking about on a slant. Sorry I don't know where you're coming from with this.

Klyros with Far East

I don't see anything far east about them but so be it as long as they don't start calling themselves Chaing Kai Shek or Hirohito Showa. If you start pulling in those cultures as part of the settings and evaluating the overall concept behind them solely based on those cultures, then yes I don't see why we cannot have Scotch Whiskey Or Mexican tequila or Russian Vodka.. Hay, who said PS was going to be original anyway? Again I'm holding up my martini glass in your salute and hailing this toast "If the settings teams doesn't give a shit, I sure won't." - cheers.

[Draklar]

You wouldn't even talk about ancient civilizations drinking mead if you didn't find it in wiki. In popular culture mead is associated with vikings and northern paganism. Especially now with the rise of Asatru.

Italics? OK I see the toons stretching out their backs all the time but don't recall ever seeing them walking about on a slant. Sorry I don't know where you're coming from with this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Italic_peoples

I don't see anything far east about them

Strong sense of honour? In fact, dying for honour? Amazing will against being forced into another religion? Oriental architecture?

"If the settings teams doesn't give a shit, I sure won't." - cheers.

Good.

[Unnamed_Source]

You wouldn't even talk about ancient civilizations drinking mead if you didn't find it in wiki. In popular culture mead is associated with vikings and northern paganism. Especially now with the rise of Asatru.

OK where in the timeline do you place viking society, BC or AD?

Honey is ready made sugar, with grapes(fruit) you have to process them to extract the juice.(sugar) Remember it take bees to make mead. Making mead is one step easier than making wine, but grapes are grown and harvested where as honey is gathered from animals(insects) a process that doen't give the same yield. So eventually mead was replaced by wine in those regions around the temperate mediterranean, do to the fact that honey is an expesive comodity as to the lack of it versus the grape which is plentiful and with a steady harvest. And although, there is a processing proceedure the cheap raw material over compensates for the labor. At a later date mead was replaced by beer in those northern extremes. All the same, mead was around long before the vikings or any other modern Northern European society had made their claim. I am sorry to squash your reality but mead is an old beverage like bear and wine, lost in history of its origins. Though the process was found by different cultures of distant lands, so it is  hard to tell if just once can lay claim.

If you don't want to take Wiki as a source, try one of these or quote us from Britanica.
http://davespicks.com/writing/mme/history.html
http://www.meadmadecomplicated.org/history/mythology.html
http://rabbitsfootmeadery.com/meadhistory.html
http://home1.gte.net/richwebb/mead.htm
http://www.lindisfarne-mead.co.uk/History.aspx And there's many more that you can google yourself.

On to beer, Ales and Lagers are the two types of beer, Lager was crafter around 500AD where as Ale is much older than that. As referance, Lagers are todays popular beers such as Pilsner. Ale come in verieties such as stout/port, pale ale(bitter), etc. Your choice in whether you want to see Lagers in PS or not. Again I'll be toasting right along side you no matter your decision with my Mojito. ~ Cin Cin

[Draklar]

Haha, yes. Internet links will squash my reality.
Things you need to keep in mind:
People use "mead" to call different things. In ancient civilizations it was wine with addition of honey. "Mead was sacred to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine." <-- Otherwise is this even making sense?
All these theories are cute and all, but I prefer a cultural approch. Mead is a word of slavonic origin and it shaped itself within Germanic languages. The alcoholic drink was known on the terrains of today's western and eastern slavonic countries, but people who came from the south were surprised to see anything like that. This means the drink couldn't come all the way from Greece or Rome and it evolved seperately. Now let's talk influence of ancient "mead" and slavonic mead.
When something is introduced to another nation, usually the nation borrows the name of the item, right? Well how many countries use naming that looks awfully similar to mead?
Madhu, med, mede, mjød, met, medovukha, mõdu, midus, meddeglyn, medica and it goes on and on like this. Now how many countries use word similar to "milities"? Hmm, oh look, none actually does. And it's mighty odd, I should add, considering what expansion the Rome had.
What is today known as "mead" had its origins in slavonic regions. If it was otherwise, the Rome would have much stronger impact on what it is called today.

You can come up with whatever links you want, forgetting that some people use word 'mead' also to refer to wines, beers and other drinks that have honey added, but that won't change the influence and shaping of today's mead was completely different from what you can read there. And even if someone within ancient civilizations actually made mead, again, the cultural impact shows it didn't expand anywhere.
If that wasn't enough, neither Greece nor Rome has any mead-related tradition. Poland on the other hand is a major exporter of mead, producing traditional mead on a large scale.

[Unnamed_Source]

Haha, yes. Internet links will squash my reality.

Yeah, I can see now that nothing will put a dent in you lack of reality, not even the trueth.

Peoples everywhere well before recorded history have gathered honey and with lucky turns of events, stored honey gone bad turned out mead. Now your claim that mead wasn't around till the slavs came about is poposturus, on the basis we today use the word mead and not what ever other form from ancient times, to think that this ancient drink was not around till well after AD because we now use mead instead of what ever other language that refered to it. The Welsh refered to it a s medd, which is a good indication of who named it last, as medd(irish mid) is the closest relation to the modern day mead. According to your twisted way of thinking, even the slavs should not hold any claim.

Now, try to understand mead or what every ancient civilizations called it, is a very very old beverage. Mind you recorded history shows it only showing up in slav culture after AD, where as other known recordings show it was produced well before BC
Older than wine or bear making, it was first surpased by the wine and later by beer for economic reasons. It became much cheaper to make wine and eventually beer.

Why is it named mead, cause no one whiped out the northern Europeans, If Ghangis hadn't diedwe would probably be calling it and bear and wine by a diferent name. Unfortuantely for the Romans and the Greeks and Egyptians and all other anchient civilizations, through one means or another, their cultures and languages were lost in time. Knowing Greek or Latin doesn't really show us exactly how those civilizatiosn conducted day to day activities. Fortunately for modern Europe, the Catholic church started to chronicalize the it history in books, first writen by monks then the the printing press borrowed from the Chinese. Oh wait acording to your logic, the chinese didn't invent the printing press or moveable text cause we don't use the original chinese name today. Oh sorry maybe histroy is all wrong.

If that wasn't enough, neither Greece nor Rome has any mead-related tradition. Poland on the other hand is a major exporter of mead, producing traditional mead on a large scale.

Poland didn't produce mead till after AD, the greeks produced is well before BC and even cultures before them produced it. Yes, those culture like the ancient greeks have been lost in time. If the catholic church and later the printing press had not come along, mead would very well be called something else, but the reasone it is called that is that monks and later the press recorded it as the earliest known date. Later to be rebuffed by diggings, uncovering long dead cultures that had also made use of beverage, but like the rest of their long dead history, the names were also forgotten with time. The Welsh call it medd, the Irish mid, two versions of which are much closer much closer to the slavic/germanic words, a Celtic influence rather than the Slavic of eastern Europe, So by this asumption should we toss aside any notion regarding mead with Slavic cultures?

[Draklar]

So now we know what ancient civilizations made, despite that we have only vague sources on that?
The word mead wouldn't survive without printing press, even though it survived throughout over 1000 years before printing press was invented, spreading in similar form across most Europe?
"The Welsh call it medd, the Irish mid" - both words sound very similar to slavonic "honey", and yet it rules out slavonic origin?

Seriously, is this what you call "trueth"? :P

And Latin lost in time? Now that's rich. Countless words of Latin origin can be found in languages of various nations in the entire Europe. It wasn't just "wiped out".
And according to my logic, if name of printing press was borrowed from another language, then it would imply the printing press was passed by the given nation. There are many different methods of developing new words in language. Coinage, borrowing and all that crap. If printing press wasn't named through borrowing, then this example doesn't relate to naming of mead. If you assume I know nothing about that, well, I guess I cannot help that :P
My doubts relating to modern Italic naming is why it's so different from the naming used in 1st centure AD. Another why honey-wine and mead had no distinction before then. Now in relation to the text that mead was sacred drink for god of wine, it may just mean links you put so much faith in aren't as clear as you may wish them to be.
Personally I put more faith in linguistic evolution, since languages say a lot about cultures. Much less trust to theories unsupported by any modern tradition or clear documents. And if mead tradition was both created and died out in Rome, then I don't see its relation to today's mead.


Now if you think you can get on me with texts relating to my "twisted way of thinking" and alike smooth moves, just forget it :P
I seriously don't see a reason to discuss things with you if you want it go this way. I may care about your arguments, but not opinions.
So if you want to stay by your opinion and consider me an idiot, by all means: godspeed ;)

I guess we should just agree to disagree.
But if you can give me an example of ancient mead recipe, by all means I may reevaluate the history of mead.

[evil scotsman]

Mead is probably the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, simply put, mead is honey and water, fremented with yeast, wild yeasts or the dregs of the previous batch most probably being used.
The word 'Mead' is indeed of northern or eastern european origin, and this is the word now most associated with this fermented honey drink. However there are many references in various ancient cultures to similar drinks, which many historians refer to as 'most probably a type of mead'.

metheglin is a spiced variety which was supposed to have medicinal powers;
pyment is a grape wine, sweetened with honey (the Romans called it mulsum)
cyser is fermented apple juice and honey, perhaps a forerunner of cider;
melomel is a fruit mead - made for example, with raspberries,
sack mead is sweeter than mead;
honey and malt fermented together make an ale called bracket.

Mead has been called by many other names as well, it's thought that the original pictish drink was actually a variety of mead, but called Aque Vitae by the romans. The greeks called their honey drink 'ambrosia'.

Mead was widespread throughout the world, even today some Kenyan tribes make a type of mead using wild honey. With the rise of grape production came wine production, and this was the main reason for the decline in mead production in those areas of the world where grapes flourished, leading to a decline in mead production almost everywhere except in cultures where wine was expensive or difficult to produce locally, mainly in the northern and eastern parts of europe where mead production was still flourishing, indeed the word mead only remained in usage due to the fact that these cultures still produced their own honey and fermented honey products.

I think perhaps this is where possible confusion over the origins of mead as a drink are from, since it's only recently in recorded history that the word is associated with fermented honey drinks, ( by recently I mean the last 1000 years or so), however the word mead was only used by the nortern and eastern europeans to describe this drink, and since by this time wine was more common in the more central european cultures the words used for their varieties of fermented honey drinks died out, leaving only mead as the name still in use today.

[Draklar]

Mead is probably the oldest alcoholic drink in the world

This depends how you define mead. If alcoholic honey drink, then yes. But actual "mead" had origins and production seperate from the mentioned drinks.

mainly in the northern and eastern parts of europe where mead production was still flourishing

Not quite. It was replaced by cheaper vodka.

[evil scotsman]

I thought that mead was only replaced by vodka much later in history, latter half of the 15th century I think, although distilled spirits were being produced as early as the 8th century, at the time called the term bread wine being used to describe this drink rather than the term vodka, the word vodka only appearing in print around the 18th century.

However by this time mead production had pretty much declined in mainland europe apart from the most northern areas were grapes wouldn't grow, the norse in particular being perhaps one of the main drinkers of mead by this time, as shown by the part mead plays in the mythology of the norse.

As far as PS goes, I don't see why we can't have ales, wines and meads as part of our game, all of these were available as part of the everyday life of many medieval cultures, especially ales and wines, distilled spirits may pose some problems, however these too were available, but not as widespread, or as readily, more of a drink for the wealthy, rather than an everyday beverage.

[Draklar]

Not sure about the exact period :S
I think "bread wine" was produced as far back as 10th century AC (maybe I'm wrong on that one), but historically it isn't considered same as vodka.

On a side note I think large misconception appears in popular and historical approach to mead. For some reason in history word "mead" is used to cover a whole variety of honey drinks. In my opinion mead should be rather considered part of a larger family of honey-related alcoholic drinks. Sure, if historical approach was supported by popular one, then it could be considered word evolution. The fact remains it isn't :P
Heck, it's not even historically correct to use the term in this way.

[evil scotsman]

I think the problem with using the word mead to refer to any fermented honey drink is that in fact word evolution has happened, the original word used by various cultures to describe their own honey based beverage has been lost, and the word 'mead' is used instead.

I agree that almost everything called mead was not called that originally, however since we don't know what it was called, and in many cases can't even be sure if it was in fact similar except for the honey being used. Mead was the name used to describe the particular drink made from honey that was produced mainly in northern europe.

Perhaps we should refer to anything other than Mead as 'honey beer, or 'honey wine', which would be a generic but perhaps unsatisfying method of refering to honey based alcoholic drinks.

I knew bread wine wasn't considered the same as vodka, however it's place in history was as a forerunner to vodka, words evolve, apparently so do alcoholic drinks

[Draklar]

Perhaps :P
But what I meant is that it's usually the historicians who fill in the gaps. Though I may underestimate awareness of the popular culture :P
In the end it may blur the differences between similar drinks...

Perhaps we should refer to anything other than Mead as 'honey beer, or 'honey wine', which would be a generic but perhaps unsatisfying method of refering to honey based alcoholic drinks.

Heck, that's still better than namings for mead in Poland xD

[evil scotsman]

heck, if you happen to be in the Kada-El same time as me, we can start on a few ales, then perhaps if we can find some mead, (or anything made from honey, and containing alcohol),  we can get down to some serious comparisons, until we run out of brain cells