Metheglin (Spiced Mead)

Metheglin is a variant of mead made traditionally with herbs and spices adding for additional flavours. This is distinct from a mead actually made spicy using chillies, which would be a capsicumel.

Metheglin has its origins in folk medicines. The Welsh for mead is medd and meddyglyn came from a combination of meddyg (healing/medicine) and _llyn (liquor). This gives rise to the English word Metheglin today.

Today, it is far more common to find metheglins brewed with sweet spices rather than herbs as the combination of honey and spice produced a very warming drink. Many spiced meads or metheglins are incredibly popular around Winter and Christmas time served heated as an alternative to mulled wine. We can highly recommend it if you haven’t tried it!

Due to this common pairing of Christmas and sweet spices, it may be no surprise that many Producers have a “Christmas mead” in their offerings. See our page specifically on Christmas meads for a full list, but the most well-known is probably Lyme Bay Christmas Mead.

Friary Liqueurs produce a different, but equally enjoyable Christmas mead which might be a sensible purchase if you are ordering in a variety of liqueurs at the same time for the festive season.

Of course, any metheglin packed with sweet spice flavours is going to be a delightfully warming tipple in the Winter months, so feel free to try any of the delicious metheglins we have found so far below.