Mead with vodka: recipes for making it at home

Mead is a young drink by all standards. It appeared, presumably, in the 18th century, and gained popularity at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Bolsheviks came to power. Mead should not be confused with honey - these are two completely different drinks. Honey has been prepared since time immemorial, back in Rus', but preparing it was troublesome and time-consuming, so the drink quickly lost its fans. During the time of Peter the Great's reforms, ancient Russian drinks received a second life. Honey was no exception, but the technology was changed, bringing it as close as possible to the preparation of wines that were popular at that time. So the modern analogue of mead can easily be called honey wine or even beer.

There are a whole lot of mead recipes and their own classification. Thus, mead can be set (prepared without boiling) and boiled or rich (sterilized by boiling). There is also a drink of natural strength, and there is a fortified one (with the addition of ethyl alcohol). The list could take a long time. The drink was put on the assembly line quite quickly: in Soviet times, and even now, mead was prepared on an industrial scale and sold like beer. The most famous Suzdal - it is still the hallmark of Veliky Novgorod and is produced in a large assortment.

We decided to “process” the whole topic of homemade mead and offer several recipes for its preparation. You will learn how to make mead at home without boiling and with sterilization, with and without yeast, with the addition of hops and various spices. The drink is quite simple to prepare, no more complicated than homemade wine, it is affordable and very, very tasty. And we will begin, perhaps, with the choice of honey as the main ingredient, because its taste and aroma will ultimately influence the taste and aroma of the future drink.

Unusual recipes for making mead with vodka

In ancient Rus', honey was boiled not with water, but with alcohol; such a drink had an unsurpassed aroma and taste, it had an optimal degree, and was used for medicinal purposes. Mead invigorated, warmed and healed. Depending on the imagination, different components were added to it.

One of the popular recipes is mead with vodka and herbs. For it, herbs are used to taste; it is best to give preference to those that you know in order to avoid an allergic reaction. To make the drink, you need to use this recipe:

Vodka – 1 liter.
Honey – 5 tablespoons.
A tablespoon each of oak bark and coriander.
Dried lemon balm - a teaspoon.
Add a small amount of thyme and bison.

In the photo you can see what color this drink comes out.

Herbal mead color

To prepare a herbal drink, you need:

Mix honey with vodka, then pour in all the previously prepared herbs. The photo shows how to properly prepare sugar syrup.
Preparing sugar syrup for mead
Close the mixture and let it sit for 4 months.
After carefully filtering the drink, pour it into glass bottles.

Strawberry tincture with alcohol

The main condition for mead to be tasty is that the vodka is natural; it should not contain any additives.

Vodka with honey - recipes for homemade infusions

Homemade honey tinctures are very mild in taste with a pleasant aroma and have antiseptic properties. Honey helps maintain human immunity, thereby making the body protected from many colds and viral diseases. Alcohol with honey began to be made several thousand years ago, and many recipes have survived to this day unchanged. The most common are numerous honey tinctures made with vodka with the addition of additional ingredients: pepper, ginger, apples, lemon, spices and herbs.

When preparing a homemade tincture from honey, good vodka is usually used for the alcohol base; it can be replaced with good homemade double-distilled moonshine or diluted with alcohol to a drinking strength of 40-45 degrees. The taste of the drink will be interesting if you use cognac or brandy in it. You can use any honey for the tincture: meadow, flower, linden. It’s good if it’s fresh, but candied honey is also quite suitable.

Suzdal mead

Ingredients

Honey – 500 g
Water – 4 l
Sugar – 500 g
Yeast – 100 g

Cooking method

In a saucepan, dilute a mixture of half honey and sugar with water. Place on the stove and cook for 15 minutes, remembering to skim off the foam.
Remove the pan from the heat, cool to 30 degrees, add pre-diluted yeast and place in a warm place for 3 days to ferment.
After this period, strain the contents and leave for a month in a cold place. Then we filter again, add three times the amount of honey and completely dissolve it. Cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator for 4 days. As soon as foam appears on the surface, Suzdal mead is ready.

Choosing the right honey from the right bees

It just so happened that old, candied honey is traditionally put into mead. It is better to take the most aromatic one, linden or buckwheat. It is important that the honey is healthy, without signs of disease, but even in such cases it can be well sterilized, which is often done. It's another matter if you are going to buy a product.

To avoid running into counterfeit and low-quality raw materials, go through this list:

Good honey should not foam - this indicates its low quality and, more often, disease. It foams when it has fermented, but good honey cannot ferment on its own - it is bactericidal. The bactericidal properties of honey are lost when it is diluted with water and heated, which is what we will do in the process of preparing mead.
Candied honey is good. Some people believe that cloudy and thickened (candied) honey is considered old and unfit for consumption. On the contrary, candied honey is a sign of quality. It is liquid only in summer and early autumn, and by October 20, good honey is sugared (the exception is the product made from white acacia, which can remain in a liquid state until spring, as well as heather honey - this does not crystallize at all, but turns into a jelly mass.)
Accordingly, if they try to sell you liquid honey (not acacia honey) in winter or spring, it means they want to sell you a fake.
Real honey is very aromatic. The counterfeit product has no odor, as it is often prepared with the addition of regular sugar, which completely kills all odors.

Recipes

Without a doubt, any mead made with honey, regardless of the recipe, after it is ready, has a certain percentage of strength. That is, by definition it contains alcohol. An ordinary product will be a little stronger than beer, but so that it is not inferior to really strong drinks, its composition is diversified with alcohol.

Fortified with alcohol

It is worth noting that you can add vodka to mead at home even after drinking is done. This product is called “fortified” and is served with a more serious appetizer than usual. It is not advisable to use ethylene glycol in its pure state; it is advisable to first dilute it in boiled water.

So, the recipe will require some ingredients.

Ingredients

natural bee honey – a third of a kilogram;
clean water (preferably melted water) – a couple of liters;
hop cones (it’s okay if it’s in a crushed state) – 5 grams;
dry brewer's yeast - one teaspoon;
medical alcohol (it must be diluted in advance to a strength of at least 50%!, (MISSING) however, this is at the discretion of each cook) - optional, but no more than half a liter, otherwise the product will taste unpleasant. Naturally, in the absence of such a remedy, both vodka and moonshine will do;
For spices, it is advisable to have at least a pinch of cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Herbal tincture - recipes

The process of making mead with vodka at home consists of the following steps.

Preparation

Boil honey and water over medium heat for half an hour. The whole process must be accompanied by systematic stirring, otherwise the bee products will simply burn. In addition, at the current stage a lot of foam is formed, which must be constantly removed.
You need to let your honey mixture cool a little, to about forty-five degrees Celsius, but not below room temperature. Only then can spices, hops and yeast be mixed into it.
Once the addition of new components is completed and they are mixed into the liquid, it will have to be left to ferment. For such purposes, it is best to choose a warm, sunny place. You should also not forget to install a hydraulic lock, which will also indicate when this stage actually ends - gas bubbles will stop being released. In addition, there will be no characteristic foam. Approximately, this will take about a week.
Theoretically, at this stage of preparing mead, you can already add ethyl alcohol (or moonshine - whoever is rich in what). However, it would still be a good idea to save such an action for later. It is best to filter the liquid and then pour it into a container for further infusion. The best choice is a dark place with a low temperature. The vodka mead is left in it for at least a week, but better - for a month. Only after this is it worth adding alcohol.

Cooking secrets

The secret of how to make good mead with vodka lies in its aging - the longer it is, the more pleasant the drink turns out. The honey drink acquires a special taste in the sixth month of infusion, even at home. It is then that it is truly difficult to confuse it with the swill that is obtained with a minimum period of tincture. But whether it is worth diluting it with moonshine, we will consider below.

On vodka

In order not to bother with diluting alcohol, it is better to initially take vodka. The recipe for the honey drink itself does not change, but the actions with alcohol are a little simplified. The only problem in this situation is to buy a quality product. After all, now, alas, you can often find low-quality fakes posing as a well-known brand.

Recommendations

Another extremely important condition: for delicious mead, vodka must be taken without any impurities. That is, if it has an apple flavor, or even contains honey, then it is better to refuse it. The product will not only affect the taste of the drink, but will also not make drinking pleasant. That is why it is better to refrain from such a substance when performing the recipe at home.

On moonshine

Perhaps the most daring recipe for mead is made with moonshine. It is very difficult, almost impossible, to predict the taste of such a drink, and its strength also often varies. If only because it is not always clear how homemade alcohol can distinguish itself. And this doesn’t take into account what kind of mead you will get during the cooking process. May mead can have a special taste. However, in the absence of better means, it is quite possible to settle for the current recipe with moonshine.

Medicinal tincture of St. John's wort with vodka

Recommendations

However, considerable demands are also placed on the alcohol itself. The alcohol should not be very bitter and of moderate strength. Who made it is not the least important. If this is the same culinary specialist, then the drink will turn out more tasty.

So, even in ordinary, familiar home conditions, it is quite possible to create a drink from honey, suitable for a good feast. A good table photo would be a photo with a glass of vodka mead. But exactly how this should be done is up to everyone to decide for themselves. From honey collected in May, you can make May mead.

Classic vodka with honey and pepper

The most common and simplest recipe for making a drink with honey at home. In another way, the tincture is called pepper. Vodka with pepper and honey perfectly warms you up in cold weather and whets your appetite at the table. Therefore, it is customary to serve it as an appetizer at the beginning of a feast; pepper is eaten with hot meat dishes; it goes very well with jellied meat and goes well with fried potatoes. Used as a preventative against colds in small quantities.

Ingredients:

Vodka (moonshine) – 1000 ml;
Honey – 3 tbsp;
Hot pepper – 2 pods;
Black pepper – 5 pcs;
Cloves – 1 pc.

Preparation:

Rinse the pepper with water and dry with a napkin. Cut along each of the pods. Leave the seeds in the pepper for flavor.
Place the pods, peppercorns, cloves, and honey in a glass container. Pour the contents with vodka, moonshine or alcohol. Stir well.
Close the jar carefully and leave to infuse in a cool place for a week. Turn the tincture every day, stirring the contents.
Strain the resulting pepper mixture through a cotton gauze filter, pour and let rest for 3-5 days before serving.

Read also: Why radishes are bitter, do not set, do not grow, or problems when growing radishes

Vodka mead

Mead is a low-alcohol drink and to increase the alcohol content, additional strong alcohol is added - vodka or moonshine. Even mead fortified with vodka is easy to drink, and various spices and herbs are added to add flavor. After Mead with Vodka, the recipe for which is described below, ordinary mead will seem like just kvass!

Ingredients:

Honey - 350 gr;
Vodka – 500 ml;
Water - 2 l;
Hops - 2-3 cones;
Dry yeast - 1 tsp.
Cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg to taste.

How to make mead:

Pour water into a saucepan, preferably spring water, add honey and cook over low heat, stirring for 20-25 minutes. During cooking, foam forms that must be skimmed off. Cool the honey syrup to 25-28 degrees. Pour into fermentation container.
Add spices and hops to the sweet broth. You can add any spices and herbs you want, the only thing is not to overdo the quantity and not spoil the mead with too strong an aroma.
Dissolve yeast according to instructions. It is advisable to use brewer's or wine yeast in the recipe. In this case, the taste of the final product will be noticeably better. Add yeast to honey water.
Fermentation lasts 7-14 days at a temperature of 20-25 C under a water seal. Then the mead should be strained and poured into a clean container under the throat. Close the lid and leave in a dark place (cellar, basement) for 3-4 weeks.
After fermentation, strain the mead again, pour in vodka, pour into suitable bottles and keep in glass for a week.

Recipe for ginger honey tincture with vodka

The tincture prepared with ginger and honey turns out to be quite tasty and healthy. Honey softens the tincture, and ginger gives a pleasant aroma to the drink. You can use pepper in the recipe, or you can do without it. You can also make a tincture with honey and lemon, replacing the pepper with one lemon.

Ingredients:

Vodka - 700 ml.
Honey – 100 gr;
Chili pepper – 1 piece;
Ginger – 50 gr;

How to do:

Finely chop the ginger, you can grate it using a coarse grater, but the tincture produces a lot of suspended matter, which will need to be carefully filtered.
Throw pepper into a jar, add honey and ginger. Pour in the alcohol base; instead of vodka, you can pour purified moonshine or alcohol diluted with water.
Close the lid and leave for 10-14 days. Once a day, the jar of infusion must be shaken to stir.
After infusion, strain the drink through a gauze filter.

Honey vodka with herbs

Altai honey tincture will appeal to many fans of homemade alcohol. Very pleasant taste and aroma will not leave your guests indifferent. In addition, the tincture has a healing effect. The drink made according to this recipe is popular among residents with harsh winters; it can be consumed in its pure form to warm up, as well as to prevent colds. The same tincture can be made from moonshine and alcohol.

Ingredients:

Vodka – 1 bottle;
Honey – 2 tbsp;
Pharmaceutical oak bark – 1 tsp;
Dried thyme – 1 tsp;
Coriander – 1/3 tsp;
Zubrovka – 1/2 tsp;
Dried lemon balm – 1 tsp.

Recipe preparation method:

Pour all the ingredients into the jar. Pour vodka, stir and close.
Infuse for 20-30 days in a cool room. For the first week, stir the infusion once a day by shaking.
Filter the finished honey tincture using cotton pads, repeat the procedure if necessary.
Keep the spilled drink in the refrigerator for 2-3 days; if there is sediment, carefully pour the tincture into a clean container.

Making mead with alcohol

Ethyl alcohol is added after the mead has been prepared, so you can achieve the desired degree. The recipe is fortified. Ethyl cannot be used in its pure form; it must be diluted with water first.

The recipe for alcohol requires the following ingredients:

Honey – 400 grams, must be of high quality and natural. Under no circumstances should a counterfeit product be used; it will not make mead.
Melt water – 3 liters.
5 hop cones.
A teaspoon of dry brewer's yeast.
Ethyl alcohol, pre-diluted to 50%!to (MISSING)resolution, use no more than 400 ml, this can spoil the drink and harm your health. You can replace it with vodka or moonshine.
Take spices to taste, you can use cardamom, mint, cinnamon, nutmeg.

To make mead with alcohol, you need to boil the honey with water for about 40 minutes, do not forget to stir, the mixture should not burn. When the broth burns a little, it cannot be used, it will have an unpleasant taste. The foam must be constantly removed. Cool the syrup to 50 degrees, then add cones, yeast, and spices. Mix all. Then leave the mixture to ferment in a sunny place.

Install a water lock, this will make it easier to know when fermentation is coming to an end, you will notice that gas bubbles will not be released, and there will be no foam. This entire process will take one week.

Below in the photo you can see the features of the hydrolock for making mead.

Scheme of water seals for fermentation

Some people add alcohol right away, but it’s best to do this after you’ve gotten rid of the slurry. Then the mead is poured into glass containers and placed for one week, preferably two months, in a place with a cold temperature. When the drink has brewed, you can add alcohol.

Remember that the main secret of high-quality mead made with alcohol is its aging. The longer it sits, the tastier it will be.

The best recipes for moonshine mead at home

If you have a lot of fermented or candied honey and homemade moonshine on hand, you can make an excellent alcoholic drink - mead. Classic mead is prepared without the addition of strong alcohol, sometimes with hops or yeast. There are not many degrees in this tincture - from 3% to 12%. But many would like to increase them. For this purpose, moonshine, store-bought vodka or diluted alcohol are added to the tincture.

Moonshine, according to 80% of beekeepers and home winemakers, is best suited for making mead. This, like honey, is a natural product on an organic basis, without flavorings, synthetic colors and preservatives. In addition, many people have moonshine in stock; there is no need to buy it, which makes preparation cheaper.

The percentage of ethyl alcohol in mead on moonshine

The strength of moonshine mead depends on two main factors:

the initial strength of moonshine - it can be from 30 to 70 degrees;
the amount of moonshine added to the honey tincture.

If you add 100 ml to a bottle of finished mead. moonshine with a standard strength of 40%, then the strength of the drink will vary from 12% to 18%. If you add more moonshine, the strength of the drink can reach 30-35%.

Do not confuse mead with the addition of moonshine and moonshine that has fermented with honey. These are two completely different beverage preparation technologies, with different strengths and tastes.

The video will tell you more about moonshine mead.

Moonshine bitters recipe

Classic hoppy honey made from moonshine, if carefully prepared, has a pleasant aroma and taste, without a fusel aftertaste. The main condition is to use high-quality purified homemade moonshine and natural honey.

Ingredients:

natural honey - 400 gr.;
purified water - 1 l.;
homemade purified moonshine - 1 l.;
hop cones - ½ tbsp.

Preparation:

Mix honey and water and boil.
Collect the foam, add hop cones, cool to 30 degrees.
Add moonshine.
Pour into a glass bottle.
Place in the cellar for 1 month to infuse.

Application:

Strain the infused mead from the moonshine, cool and serve for the holiday table.

Lemon mead recipe

Moonshine mead with lemon is prepared in a slightly different way. Rather, it is a moonshine tincture with honey and lemon juice. Its strength is at least 40%. But the taste is mild and the aroma is pleasant.

Ingredients:

natural honey - 500 gr.;
moonshine - 5- ml;
lemon juice - 50 ml;
3-4 sprigs of fresh mint.

Preparation:

Mix honey with moonshine.
Pour in lemon juice and stir again until all ingredients are completely combined.
Add mint leaves.
Pour the mixture into bottles, seal and leave to infuse for at least 3 weeks.
Strain before serving and taste. Improve the taste at your discretion using anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger.

Application:

This lemon moonshine mead is good chilled. It can be used for baking - the dough will be fluffy and fragrant.

By experimenting with the amount of moonshine, herbs and lemon, different types are obtained

Strong honey

Ingredients

Water – 4 l
Honey – 600 g
Dry yeast – 5 g
Port wine or cognac – 40-60 ml

Cooking method

Boil 1 liter of water, dissolve the honey well and mix with the remaining cold water.
Add yeast, stir, leave at room temperature for 14 days.
Add an alcoholic drink to taste and leave for another 14-15 days.
Seal the container tightly and leave in a cool place for at least 180 days.
Pour the finished drink into bottles for storage, keep in a cool place.

If you have a mead recipe that is not listed above, please share it with me via the contact form. Let's put all the recipes together!

Buckwheat honey tincture

The most important thing when preparing such a tincture is the correct choice of buckwheat honey, since it has a bitterness and, accordingly, if the honey is bitter, then the drink will be the same.

List of ingredients

1000 ml mint alcohol tincture;
300 g honey;
a pinch of ground cinnamon.

Preparation

This recipe, like the previous one, is very simple. All ingredients must be mixed and refrigerated for 10 days.

To ensure that the honey is completely dissolved, you should stir the mixture often. When the tincture is ready, it should be filtered and poured into dark bottles, wine bottles are best.

Lemon mead prepared at home will be qualitatively different from store-bought alcoholic drinks with lemon flavor due to the presence of natural and fresh ingredients in it.