Mead has a very old and wonderful tradition. And the art of making it hasn't changed a whole lot in the past four hundred years! Yup, you can get four hundred year old recipes that work very nicely- from the Digby book.

The book is: "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened" and it is a famous and popular resource for mead makers.

In it there are lots of recipes on how to make mead.

I have the Digby book right here for Kindle both handheld and desktop. You are free to download it.

David has sent me a few emails about his experiences making some of the meads in the Digby book. Here is what he has to say. And you can check out more resources and information about it on his website.

Here is what he has to say:

Digbie has about 102 recipes in his book. I have made several based on his recipes, the main ones I have made are on my webpage here: http://home.roadrunner.com/~limited58/mead.htm The recipes on my webpage were adapted by a college professor who was an academic advisor to our brew club.

I have modified them slightly (I reduced the amount of cloves he recommended by over half plus other changes here and there) to suit my tastes. My favorites are the White Pepper Metheglin (recipe #72) and the Cherry Russian Melomel (recipe #34).

I like the others that I have made except for the white metheglin (recipe #70), but that might get better with age.

Here is a link to the copy of Digbie's book that I bought

You might be able to find a cheaper used copy. There are a lot of food recipes from the 1600s as well. The mead recipes will have to be adapted - some use up to 100 gallons of water and 25+ gallons of honey (one recipe is to make 2 hogsheads of mead - 126 gallons). Measurements are ambiguous: one handful this, a little of that, etc. The original spellings and words are used in the book: barm = yeast, yest = yeast, tost = toast, etc. So in reality, the recipes are a basic guide and you come up with your own proportions of herbs and spices for a smaller 4-5 gallon batch.

The original Book is available on amazon.com in a variety of prices and bindings:

The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened

Do you like making projects and exploring a variety of hobbies?

Sign up for my free newsletter. I give you regular updates on hobbies and projects you can make. it is totally free and I don't share your email with anybody.