Mead all about it: Ex-army man bringing back bygone booze
Mead – the honeyed booze beloved by Vikings – is going through a modern revival, thanks to a former soldier.
Christopher Mullin, 45, started making mead commercially at his microbrewery in Perthshire five years ago after retiring from a 20-year army career as an intelligence officer.
He brews his Rookery Craft Mead in the village of Enochdhu, near Pitlochry.
“These recipes are not exact copies but are inspired by the same ingredients and processes as our ancestors from the Bronze Age,” said Christopher.
“I put honey and water in a barrel, add yeast and stir it then leave it to settle for nine months. It’s that simple!”
Christopher uses Scottish Heather Honey made by a local producer and flavours his mead with locally-foraged fruits and berries. Now he’s trying to whet our appetite for “misunderstood” mead.
“A common misconception is that mead is very sweet because commercially manufactured mead is full of sugar and chemicals.
“Now someone is making it the right way, my mission is to make it popular again.”
Christopher started making mead at University where he was inspired by reading about the drink in Celtic literature and Norse mythology.
“Mead is referenced throughout Norse mythology. Vikings definitely drank it,” he said.
“There’s no preserved recipes but we can assume what they were drinking was lower in alcohol content compared to what I make today, which is 17% abv.
“They would have used lots of berries and fruits and possibly grain, so it would have tasted like a fruit beer.”