Homemade honey wine recipe. Homemade honey wine

“Drink of the Gods” was the name given to an alcoholic drink made from honey in ancient Scandinavia. And they weren’t lying. Real honey wine truly has a noble taste. It will become the pearl of any wine collection.

Honey wine made at home not only retains many healing qualities. It is an original drink with an interesting caramel taste and floral aroma. The finished wine has a beautiful golden color. It can be consumed both cold and hot.

The most popular are honey-fruit wines and boiled honey.

Before making homemade wine based on honey, it is important to know a few facts.

• To obtain a high-quality drink, you need to use meadow or linden honey. It is not recommended to take a fawn beekeeping product, since it contains not only vegetable, but also animal fats. This may affect the final taste.
• Pure honey has very low acidity - only about 0.4%. Therefore, when making wine, it is necessary to add natural fruit juices from apples, pears, gooseberries or currants to the wort.
• This drink is useful, but only in small quantities. This is especially true for older people and people with chronic diseases.
• Honey is less sweet than sugar. For this reason, more of it is needed for wine. For 100 grams of sugar there are 140 honey.
• We sterilize all used utensils with boiling water.

When choosing honey, we are guided by its color and smell. A bright golden color, without turbidity or foam, a rich floral aroma, and sugariness is acceptable.

Classic recipe

So, to make natural honey wine at home, you need to use a simple recipe.

Composition, ingredients and proportions:

• 600 grams of honey;
• 3 liters of water;
• 0.5 kg raisins;
• a glass of sugar or fruit syrup.

Step-by-step sequence of actions.

1. First, prepare the raisin starter. There is no need to wash it. Pour a liter of warm boiled water over the dried berries and leave for several hours. As soon as the starter becomes cloudy and begins to foam, we can move on to the next steps.

2. Add honey to the remaining 2 liters of water. Mix everything well.

3. Place the honey mixture on the fire and cook for one hour. As it appears, be sure to remove the foam.

4. Cool the wort and pour it into a glass container. Add fermented sourdough. There should be about 20–25% free space in the container.

5. We put a water seal or a rubber glove with a punctured finger on the neck of the container we are using. We put it in a warm and dark place. Fermentation lasts on average about a month. Periodically, you will need to drain the wine from the sediment that forms at the bottom.

5. Fermentation is over as soon as the glove is deflated and sediment ceases to form. Add sugar or fruit syrup to the jar (bottle). Mix thoroughly, seal and place in a cool place (basement).

6. Wine ripening lasts from a month to six months. The more time passes, the tastier the drink will be.

7. Pour the finished wine into bottles.

Enjoy your honey masterpiece!

Benefit

It is no secret that the main product of beekeeping has not only a lot of taste, but also useful qualities. This is nectar that bees collect and process. It contains:

• glucose;
• fructose;
• sucrose;
• natural acids;
• potassium;
• phosphorus;
• sodium;
• calcium.

Even allergy sufferers and diabetics can consume honey. They treat colds and infectious diseases. Also used to heal burns and wounds.

Homemade wine is successfully used as a prophylaxis against acute respiratory viral infections.

A little history

In Ancient Rus', honey was the main component of most alcoholic drinks. This can be judged from oral folk art: “and I was there, I drank honey and beer, it flowed down my mustache, but it didn’t get into my mouth.” Among the sweet drinks there was honey wine.

Ancient wines were prepared for two occasions:

• long storage for decades (cooked for 4 hours);
• quick consumption (cold method).

The first were called boiled honeys, the second - honey wines. In those days, making good honey was not easy. We used the best quality wild bee honey. Be sure to add raspberry or lingonberry juice. River or rain water was used, and tinned dishes. The barrels had to be clean. There are no extraneous unpleasant odors in the fermentation room.

The drink was aged for 15 and sometimes 30 years. This alcoholic delicacy was in the center of the princely table. Various wine recipes were called: “princely”, “boyar”, “apiary”, “strong”, “table” and others.

Various variations of alcoholic drinks based on honey were popular at all times, until over the last three centuries vodka finally replaced traditional mead making due to its relative cheapness and ease of production. Back in the 7th millennium BC. On the territory of modern India, a sacred intoxicating drink was produced, the main raw material for which was honey, since it, having an unlimited shelf life if properly stored, was associated by the ancients with the idea of ​​​​immortality. The Scandinavians and Germans also loved it, and in Rus' they buried the mash in wooden barrels in the ground to make intoxicating drinking honey. Now it is not easy to repeat this intricate technology, but preparing an alcoholic honey drink, such as wine, with your own hands and at home is quite possible.

How to choose honey for wine

In the manufacture of any product, raw materials play a key role, and honey wine is no exception. When approaching the choice of the main ingredient, it is worth remembering that there are a huge number of different varieties and types of honey, and even when purchasing, for example, buckwheat, one cannot say with absolute certainty that it is such, since bees are not distinguished by their commitment to certain varieties of flowers and They are collected in a specific geographic range, so even the purest product will contain impurities.

When making a choice, you must first rely on your taste, however, it is best to use a candied product to make honey wine at home; you can even use a strand or an old one that has been thoroughly sterilized beforehand. If you yourself are not the owner of an apiary and there are no trusted sellers among your friends and acquaintances, then, before purchasing honey for making wine, you should know a few simple rules so as not to get into trouble and not buy an outright fake:

• Candied honey, contrary to popular belief, is by no means considered inferior; on the contrary, almost any honey collected in the summer, except heather, crystallizes by mid-autumn.
• high-quality honey never foams, since this is a clear sign of fermentation, and by itself it cannot ferment without heating and diluting with water, because it has bactericidal properties.
• natural honey has a pronounced floral aroma; a product diluted with sugar will most likely have a neutral odor or no odor.

Classic recipe

To prepare honey wine according to the classic recipe, you will need a minimum of ingredients, namely: honey, water, raisins or wine yeast, a suitable container with a capacity of up to 50 liters and a device for mixing them.

For a container of 25 liters you will need approximately 10 kg of honey, pour 15 liters of pre-boiled and settled water into the container, put it on fire and immediately, without letting it boil, add 5 kg of honey there,
Immediately thoroughly stirring the resulting mass until it has a homogeneous consistency. After a few minutes of boiling, a white foam will begin to form on the surface; it must be removed with a spoon; do not forget that honey begins to burn extremely quickly, so under no circumstances leave the container unattended until the honey is ready.

Now you can add wine yeast to the resulting mixture. The fermentation process should start in about a day, it is recommended to taste the wort, and if it is not sweet enough, add honey 1-1.5 kg at a time, let me remind you that for a 25 liter container it will ultimately take about 10-11 kg honey

It is advisable to install a water seal to limit contact with open air; you can skip this step, but then your wine will turn into vinegar. After 1.5 months, the process of active fermentation comes to naught, after which it is necessary to tightly close the container with the wort, slowly releasing excess pressure. After another month, when the wine begins to lighten, you should begin to remove the sediment, pouring it from one container to another.

All. About six months from the start of the process, you will get a classic aromatic translucent drink, the aftertaste of which will vary depending on the aging of the product. Instead of water, you can initially use fruit or berry juice, feel free to experiment.

Wine recipe with honey and lemon

This recipe is suitable for the most impatient. It will not be difficult to prepare it at home. Take 5 medium-sized lemons, wash them, cut them into rings or half rings and remove all the seeds from them. Next, you will need an impressive size container, put chopped lemons in it, add 0.5 kg of honey, 300 grams of raisins and fill it all with hot water in a volume of 10 liters. Boil the resulting mixture, then, without fail, cool the resulting mass to a temperature of 25- 30 degrees, add 1-2 teaspoons of dry yeast and leave for two days. When the raisins and lemons rise to the surface, the wine needs to be filtered and bottled; within a week it will be ready for drinking.

Apple juice wine recipe

To make wine from honey with apple juice with your own hands, you will first need apples. You can use fruits that you grow yourself, or buy them at the market or supermarket. Apples must be thoroughly washed, separated from the seeds and squeezed out the juice. Next, leave the resulting juice in a dry, dark place for 3 days, stirring daily and remembering to remove the top layer from it. Now is the time to add honey to the fermented apple juice at the rate of 350 - 500 g per 1 liter of wine. The more honey, the stronger and sweeter the wine will be, and accordingly, on the contrary, for lovers of dry, weak wine, the amount of honey added should be moderate.

Pour the resulting mixture into a convenient container with a water seal, leave it for two months in a dark place at room temperature, and skim off the foam from the surface. All. The wine is ready for consumption.

Honey wine with raspberry juice

This wine is prepared according to the classical scheme based on the amount of 10-12 kg of honey per 25 liters of water. After boiling for an hour, in addition to yeast, you can add 2? 2.5 liters of raspberry juice, after which the future wine must be filtered and left to infuse.

Hot wine recipe for colds

In winter or during outbreaks of colds, there is nothing better to boost immunity than hot wine with honey. To begin with, you will need grape wine, both homemade and store-bought will do; there is no need to purchase too expensive an exquisite variety, ordinary wine will do. semi-sweet or table.

Take a glass or enamel container, add 250 ml of water, throw into it a few slices of lemon or tangerine, a piece of fresh ginger root, a pinch of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, then carefully pour the resulting cocktail with 0.75 liters of wine and put 5 tablespoons in it spoons of honey. It is not recommended to bring this mixture to a boil; this will negatively affect the taste and healing qualities of the drink, so after heating the wine and honey well over the fire, turn it off and let it sit for 15 minutes, after which the medicinal drink is completely ready. Be healthy.

Alcoholic drinks from honey began to be prepared several thousand years ago, simultaneously with the advent of beekeeping. Over time, production technology has changed, but the unforgettable taste and hop flavor remain the same. Next I will tell you how to make mead at home. We will look at a modern version and a classic recipe without yeast and boiling, which we used before.

Mead is a low-alcohol (5-10%) alcoholic drink obtained by fermenting honey. Depending on the recipe, in addition to water, yeast, hops, flavorings and other ingredients may also be added to the composition.

There is strong mead, but it is made not by fermentation, but by adding the required amount of alcohol (vodka) to the finished product. This method allows you to achieve a predetermined strength of the drink up to 75 degrees.

In Rus', “drinking honey” was considered sacred and was an integral attribute of many holidays, but in the Middle Ages they forgot about this wonderful drink. The second birth of mead occurred in the first years of Soviet power, when beekeepers received a lot of honey unsuitable for long-term storage and sale. For the sake of quick processing, beekeepers made mead with the addition of baker's yeast.

The new low-alcohol drink caught on; it was prepared at home, using not only spoiled, but also very high-quality mature honey, diluted with water. A few decades later, the industrial production of mead began. In this regard, the city of Suzdal in the Vladimir region became famous, where production has continued to this day.

Modern homemade mead

Ingredients:

• honey – 300 grams;
• water – 2 liters;
• dry yeast - 1 teaspoon (or 25 grams of pressed);
• hop cones – 5 grams;
• cinnamon and nutmeg - 1 pinch.

All ingredients are available; difficulties may arise only with hop cones. They are sold in almost every pharmacy, so this is not a problem either. You can use any yeast, for example, for baking bread.

Mead making technology

1. Choosing honey. One of the most important stages, on which the quality of the finished drink largely depends. Try to choose the most fragrant varieties. Buckwheat honey is excellent, but you can use something else, such as linden honey.

In the spring, many beekeepers offer fresh liquid honey, but if you are not well versed in beekeeping, it is better not to buy it. There is a risk that instead of a natural product, dealers will sell a surrogate made from sugar, or that the honey itself will be of low quality. Such raw materials will never make delicious homemade mead.

2. Dissolving honey in water. Pour water into an enamel pan and bring to a boil. Add honey to boiling water, stirring constantly with a spoon. After 4-5 minutes of boiling the honey mixture, a white foam will begin to appear on the surface, which must be carefully collected with a spoon.

Attention! Honey burns very quickly and can ignite, so the pan should not be left unattended for a minute.

3. Adding flavoring additives. After the foam is removed, add other ingredients to the mixture: cinnamon, nutmeg and hops, which will give the drink original flavor notes. After mixing thoroughly, remove the pan from the heat.

4. Preparation for fermentation. Cool the mixture to 25-30°C (very important) and add the diluted yeast. If you do this at a higher temperature, the yeast will die and fermentation will not begin.

Transfer the pan with the honey solution to a dark place with a temperature of about 25°C. If there is no separate room, you can use an aquarium heater. To avoid foreign substances and insects getting into the wort (flies are especially annoying in the summer), I recommend tying the pan with gauze.

After 1-2 days, signs of fermentation will appear: foam will begin to form on the surface of the mixture, and hissing will be heard. Pour the contents of the pan into a fermentation container, placing a medical glove with a hole in the finger or a water seal on the neck. The designs of these devices are shown in the photo.

5. Fermentation. As a rule, fermentation of mead lasts 4-6 days. The end of the process is indicated by a deflated glove or a prolonged absence of bubbles escaping through the water seal. Another test method is to bring a burning match to the surface of the liquid, which should not go out. There is nothing to be afraid of, the strength of the drink is only 5-10 degrees, it will not catch fire.

6. Filtration and bottling. The final stage of preparation. Carefully pour the mead into another container, leaving sediment at the bottom, then strain through several layers of gauze.

Pour the finished drink into bottles (glass or plastic), seal tightly and transfer to the refrigerator or basement. I'm not a fan of storing alcohol in plastic containers, but in this case it's harmless. The strength of mead is low, so the alcohol will not interact with the plastic. Beer is sold in bottles like these. You can drink mead almost immediately after preparation, but I recommend letting it sit for 3-5 days and only then taste it.

How to make mead carbonated

1. Wash bottles (plastic or glass) well and wipe dry.

2. Add honey to the bottom of each container (one and a half teaspoons per 1 liter of drink). Thanks to the honey, a slight secondary fermentation will occur, which will saturate the mead with natural carbon dioxide.

3. Pour the drink into bottles, leaving 5-6 cm of free space from the neck. Seal tightly with stoppers or lids.

4. Transfer the containers to a dark room at room temperature for 7-10 days. Check the gas pressure once a day and relieve excess pressure if necessary.

5. Place the carbonated honey in a cool place for at least 5 days to ripen.

Mead without yeast and boiling

An ancient recipe according to which our ancestors made mead. They did without yeast and diluted honey in cold water. I warn you that using this technology, preparation will take 3-4 months, and the strength of the drink will be much lower - 2-4 degrees.

The most difficult thing in this recipe is to find an adequate replacement for yeast, since honey and water will not ferment on their own. There are two options: use cherries (raspberries, strawberries) or raisins as a catalyst. Cherries are historically the right choice, but raisins are a more reliable choice. Let's consider both cases.

Cooking technology

1. Dilute honey in cold water. The amount of ingredients depends on the chosen fermentation catalyst. In the case of raisins, use: 1 liter of water, 80 grams of honey and 50 grams of raisins.

If you decide to support fermentation with cherries (raspberries, strawberries), then to make mead you will need: 1 liter of water, 4 kg of cherries and 2 kg of honey. First remove the pits from the cherries, then pour in the honey solution.

Attention! Raisins and cherries should not be washed before adding to mead, otherwise you may accidentally wash away the wild yeast responsible for fermentation, and it will be difficult to predict the subsequent result.

2. Tie the neck with gauze, then place the container in a warm place. Fermentation will begin in 1-2 days. Since we did without yeast (dry and baker's), it takes more time than in the first case.

3. If signs of fermentation appear (see point 4 of the first recipe), filter the liquid through several layers of gauze, pour into another container and close tightly. This method is used to prepare the so-called “set mead”, which does not require a glove or a water seal.

4. All that remains is to put the bottles in the refrigerator or cellar for maturation. After 3-4 months you can try the finished drink. It will turn out carbonated with a slight sourness, the alcohol is almost not felt, more like kvass.

P.S. Many people call “proper mead” a recipe without yeast or boiling. But this does not mean that the first option is not as tasty or healthy. I advise you to prepare mead using two methods, try each option, and only then draw conclusions.

The video shows a simple recipe for honey beer.

Several simple recipes for mead and one old recipe for Altai honey wine. Mead making is not the most popular, but one of the most accessible and ancient ways to get a low or medium alcoholic drink. There is no clear boundary between honey wine and mead, just as there is no universal way to prepare them.

The history of wine made from honey

Contrary to popular belief, honey was used as a raw material not only in the territory of ancient Rus'. The ancestors of modern Europeans - Greeks, Germans, Scandinavians - were also well aware of the benefits of honey and prepared alcoholic drinks from it no less than the Slavs.

Unfortunately, most ancient recipes have been lost forever; the secrets were passed down orally from generation to generation. And in the 16th century, winemakers began to give preference to stronger and more quickly prepared drinks.

It is known from Byzantine sources that back in the 9th century, some Slavic tribes knew how to ferment honey, and after souring they created mulsum from it, a semblance of ancient Roman wine with honey. Wine was used as payment for tribute, and was also sold by Western European countries.

One of the disadvantages of ancient methods of honey winemaking was the long preparation time to obtain a good quality product. Honey that was aged up to 25 years was served at the table of the Grand Dukes.
Therefore, low-alcohol drinks - mead, kvass - were more common among the people. Their creation did not require high-quality raw materials, and the preparation time was much shorter.

How mead was prepared in the old days

According to information that has reached us, wine from honey was prepared in two ways:
hot method - for subsequent long-term aging;
cold method - for quick consumption.

Although, for example, in Altai they used exclusively the method without digestion.
With the hot method, the wort was boiled for 4 hours, using the best wild honey, lingonberry or raspberry juice and river water. Only tinned dishes were used. Aged in barrels for at least 10-15 years. Some recipes had specific names: “princely”, “boyar”, “strong”.
The cold method did not require heat treatment and was more like making kvass.

Modern methods of making wine from honey

It is necessary to distinguish honey wine prepared at home from that produced in a factory. A whole team of craftsmen works in mead workshops: technologists and tasters. Special equipment and materials are used. This allows you to achieve stability in the taste of the resulting drink. For a home winemaker, each brew is a separate, unique process.

A simple homemade recipe for honey wine (mead)

This is one of the simplest ways to make honey wine with minimal ingredients. All you need is:
honey – 600 g;
raisins – 500 g;
boiled water – 3 l;
fruit/sugar syrup – 1 cup.
*It is especially worth noting that there is no need to wash the raisins.

To create the starter, add 1 liter of warm water to the raisins and leave for several hours. If the water begins to foam a little and becomes cloudy, it means the starter is ready. Pour honey with two liters of remaining water and mix. Now you should place the container with the honey solution on the stove and cook for one hour. The foam that appears during cooking must be skimmed off.

The finished honey (as honey with water is called) is cooled and poured into a glass container; it is more convenient to use a bottle with a neck. Pour the leaven with raisins into it. There should be about a quarter of free space left in the container.

We put a water seal on the neck: a lid with a tube, the other end of which is lowered into a nearby jar of water. This is necessary so that during fermentation the gas leaves the bottle and air does not enter it.

Instead of a water seal, you can use the “old-fashioned” method - a rubber glove with a pierced finger appendage.

Fermentation should take place in a warm place, protected from light. Its duration is about a month, the sediment that falls at the bottom must be periodically removed. If the sediment has stopped forming and the glove has deflated, the process is complete.

Pour a glass of syrup or fruit juice into the bottle, mix and place in a cool place. This could be a cellar in the country or a glassed-in balcony in winter.

The aging time and the exact composition of raw materials for honey wine must be selected experimentally. Experienced honey winemakers advise choosing linden or meadow honey. It’s not scary if it’s candied, the main thing is to focus on the taste, aroma and color of the product. It is better not to buy honeydew honey, because the animal fats in its composition may not have the best effect on the taste during fermentation.
The utensils used for cooking must be scalded with boiling water.

How to make honey wine without hops - recipe

For preparation it is used:
granulated sugar - one glass;
honey – 3 kg;
yeast starter – 7 l;
water – 12 l.

A starter of 50 g of yeast and 7 liters of warm water is infused for several hours, about 4-5. At the same time, the wort is boiled: add water to the honey and cook, skimming off the foam, over low heat until a clear syrup is obtained.

The cooled honey solution needs to be poured into a glass bottle, add sugar fried in a frying pan and pour in the starter. After thorough mixing, the bottle is placed in a cool place for two weeks. After the expiration date, it is bottled and left for cold storage.

An ancient recipe for Altai honey wine

In Altai, they use a “cold” method of preparing mead, without boiling they are full. In this case, honey practically does not lose its beneficial properties, and the wine is obtained with a more delicate taste and aroma. Sourdoughs are also not used in this method.

To better understand what the water/honey ratio should be, you can use this cheat sheet:

For strong wine (19-20 degrees) - 100 liters per 60-70 kg;
medium strength, semi-sweet – 100 l per 100 kg;
light wine – 100 l per 30 kg.

From here you can derive proportions for smaller volumes.

Cooking satiate comes down to dissolving honey in warm boiled water by thoroughly mixing it. For fermentation, the syrup, filtered through several layers of gauze, is poured into glass bottles. Then, fresh cranberry or sour sea buckthorn juice is added to the honey solution (100 liters to 1 liter of juice).

The opening of the bottles is covered with cloth or cotton wool plugs. The wine ferments at +18-22 degrees for about 4 weeks. The end is indicated by the cessation of seething and the formation of bubbles, after which the containers are moved to a cooler place (+10 degrees), where the product settles for another 1-2 weeks.

After straining, the wine is again poured into a clean bottle, where it matures for at least 6 months, acquiring a golden-transparent hue. Bottled finished wine can be stored for up to several years.

This recipe is one of the longest in terms of preparation time, but one of the closest to the old recipes.

Attention, TODAY only!

Natural honey is not just a tasty product, but also healthy, because it is not for nothing that it is included in gourmet dishes, desserts and drinks. It is all the more valuable that even wine made from honey retains all the natural and miraculous properties of the original raw material.

Which mead recipes are the most delicious and how to make the drink correctly, we will consider further (see:).

The main component of honey is nectar, which bees collect from flowers and plants during their flowering period. The finished product resembles the color of the honeycombs in which it is contained – white and yellow. Quality is checked by density, origin, and method of extraction.

The most common choice for preparing homemade drinks is flower and linden honey, less often - buckwheat and other varieties.

In addition to the aroma and sweet taste, honey has other positive characteristics, as well as a high content:

• microelements – magnesium, sodium, calcium, phosphorus;
• natural sweeteners - glucose, sucrose, fructose;
• natural acids.

Honey is a useful product not only for diabetics, but also helps in the treatment of wounds, burns and mucositis. For the production of good wine, not only these factors are important, but also the taste and pleasant aroma.

Honey wine preparation technology

Even in Ancient Rus', homemade wine based on honey called mead and was in demand both at noisy feasts and among weakened or even sick people.

Honey-based wines are prepared in the same way as:

1. The wort is made - the honey is diluted with water by almost half, the result is full - sweet water, which must be boiled over low heat exactly until the liquid becomes transparent.
2. Yeast starter is added to the resulting wort.
3. The product is processed within 4-5 days until it is ready.

Important. Since there are not many natural acids in honey, juices of berries and fruits are added to the wort to make the taste of the wine more intense.

For the same purpose, aromatic spices are added to the wort. Like wine made from grapes, the quality of mead depends on the degree of aging.

Semi-sweet and sweet honey wines are obtained after additional addition of honey to the finished wine. If you need to get a fortified product, you should add a little alcohol to the infused wine. The higher the alcohol content, the higher the strength of the final drink.

Recipes at home

Over the years of their work, professional winemakers have managed to give us several proven recipes for honey-based wine.

Wine with honey and lemon

This drink gives a wonderful aroma and a slight degree of carbonation. adding hops. It is believed that this recipe is one of the easiest and can be done even by those who have no winemaking experience.

The drink contains;

• 2 kg of honey;
• 10 liters of water;
• 20 g hop cones;
• 8-10 pieces of fresh lemons.

Honey diluted with water is boiled over low heat for no more than 50 minutes. An important point at this stage– timely collection of foam, which contains pollen. You can add hop cones to the syrup that has become clear and let the mixture boil for a couple of minutes.

The wort, cooled to 25-30 degrees, is poured into a glass container with cut lemon slices, closed with a nylon lid and stored in a cool place for a couple of weeks. After 2 weeks of aging, the wine (in this case more like a compote) can be bottled.

Wine with apple juice

Wine with apple juice is a prominent representative of fortified honey wines. Even though the preparation process will take more than a month, the wait will be fully justified by the great taste.

Starting Ingredients:

• juice from fresh apples – 5 l;
• honey – about 1.5 kg;
• purified food alcohol – 0.5 l;
• yeast starter – 0.5 l;
• spring water – 5 l;
• spices for aroma - to taste.

Preparation of the drink begins with heating freshly squeezed juice from sour apple varieties, to which honey and water are gradually added. The mixture is boiled until a sweet syrup is obtained, after which it is removed from the heat, diluted with yeast starter and poured into glass bottles after cooling.

The container is closed either with a stopper with a water seal, or tightly tied with a rubber glove and sent to ferment for 7-10 days.

After the fermentation process is completed (if a glove is put on the bottle, it should be deflated by this time), alcohol is added to the bottle and the vessel remains open for several days. During the settling procedure, apple-honey sediment should settle to the bottom of the bottle.

After which the liquid is filtered until this very sediment is discarded, and the necessary spices are added to the resulting composition. In this form, the wine should stand for several weeks before the final procedure of filtering and bottling.

Mead with raspberry juice

Ripe raspberries will give not only a sweet taste, but also an amazing aroma. What you need for wine:

• 4.5 kg of honey;
• 10 liters of water;
• 1 liter of yeast starter;
• 2 liters of raspberry juice.

Raspberry juice and starter are added to the cooled solution. The glass container is tightly sealed and shaken to mix the ingredients. Next, the wine is sent to rest to complete the fermentation process.

After a couple of weeks, the resulting mixture is filtered and bottled. Winemakers advise letting the drink sit for another couple of months for a richer taste.

Classic honey wine

If you want to get a classic drink without any additives, you should use the following products:

• 3 kg of honey;
• 12 liters of water;
• 7 liters of yeast starter;
• 250 g sugar.

Yeast-based starter is prepared from 7 liters of warm water and 50 g of fresh yeast ( not powder), the resulting mixture is placed in a warm place while the honey wort is cooked from honey and the remaining 5 liters of water for a couple of hours.

Fried sugar and well-aged sourdough are added to the finished wort. The resulting mixture is left to stand for several weeks in a cool and dark place, after which it is filtered and bottled into final bottles.

How should you drink honey wine?

In modern culture, alcohol consumption can be used with any meal in unlimited quantities.

In the old days, there were several traditions of its use:

1. Mead was consumed as an aperitif on an empty stomach, stimulating metabolism and digestion.
2. Chilled bottles were opened carefully to avoid the shaking process.
3. In winter, it was allowed to warm up the honey wine a little.
4. The wine was poured into small glasses and drunk in small sips.

Mead, although a drink with a low alcohol content, can knock anyone down if consumed uncontrollably, so be careful and learn the drinking culture from our ancestors.