18th Century Mead

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Last updated: June 23, 2026

Eighteenth-century recipes for (and references to) mead.

Recipes below for “white mead” tend to be quick meads (some aging only a few days) before “it will be fit to drink.”

• To make mead in the manuscript cookbook of D. Petre (1705)
• How to make English Canary, no way inferior to the best of Spanish Wines, The True Amazons: or, The Monarchy of Bees (1713)
• The Accomplished Housekeeper, and Universal Cook (1717)
  • Mead Wine
  • Walnut Mead
  • Cowslip Mead
• The Cook’s and Confectioner’s Dictionary (1723):
  • To make Mead
  • Another Way
  • To make white Mead
  • To make strong Mead another way
• Court Cookery (1725)
  • How to make white Mead
  • To make Mead another Way
• The Compleat City and Country Cook (1732)
  • Mead
  • To make small white Mead
• To make an Excellent Mead, answering to Sack, Sherry, or Mountain White-Wine in Instructions for Managing Bees (1733)
• A Collection Of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick, and Surgery (1734)
  • White Mead, very good
  • To make strong Mead
• The Whole Duty of a Woman (1737)
  • To make Mead
  • To make small White Mead
• The House-Keeper’s Pocket-Book and Compleat Family Cook (1739)
  • To make Mead
  • To make white Mead
  • To make white Mead
  • To make Mead
• Of Vinous-Mead in A Treatise of all Sorts of Foods, Both Animal and Vegetable (1745)
• Of the Way to make Mead in Of Husbandry (a 1745 translation from the ancient Latin)
• “Two Receipts for making Mead, take also which ever of them you think best,” in The Practical Bee-Master (1747)
• A Collection Of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery (1749)
  • White Mead, very Good
  • To make Strong Mead
• Two recipes “to make mead” in Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats
• The House-Keeper’s Pocket-Book, And Compleat Family Cook (1760)
  • To make Mead
  • To make White Mead
• “To make STRONG MEAD” and “To make MEAD another Way” in English Housewifery (1760)
• Of Mead in A New System of Practical Husbandry (1766)
• The Experienced English House-keeper (1769)
  • To make Sack Mead
  • To make Cowslip Mead
  • To make Walnut Mead
• The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy (1774)
  • How to make mead
  • To make white mead
• The Experienced Bee-Keeper (1783)
  • Of Mead, and Wines to be made with Honey
  • To make Mead
  • The way to promote, or check fermentation
  • The method of scenting casks with the match
  • To give Mead the flavor of Rhenish Wine
  • To give Mead the flavor of Frontiniac
  • To give Mead an agreeable roughness
  • To give Mead the flavor of Rasberries, Currants, &c. &c.
  • To tincture Mead of a fine red colour
  • To cure Mead when it is foul or ropy
  • To recover Mead when it is flat, or fretting
  • Further Remarks on the making of Mead, &c.
• The Experienced English Housekeeper (1786)
  • To make Sack Mead
  • To make Cowslip Mead
  • To make Walnut Mead
• The Lady’s Assistant for Regulating and Supplying the Table (1787)
  • Mead Wine, an excellent Receipt, from a Lady
  • Another Way to make Mead
  • To make Small Mead
• Mead Wine (including walnut mead and cowslip mead) in The English Art of Cookery (1788)
• The Universal Cook and City and Country Housekeeper (1792)
  • Mead Wines
  • White or Sack Mead
  • Walnut Mead
  • Cowslip Mead
• Mead in Every Woman Her Own House-Keeper (1796)
• To Make Mead in The Antient Bee-Master’s Farewell (1796)
• Hydromel, or mead in The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph (1831)