MOGADORE, Ohio – Kent Waldeck is doing everything he can to see that a very old drink enjoys newfound popularity.

Waldeck owns Crafted Artisan Meadery, which makes a variety of honey wines. He has won awards – he counts a Mazer Cup among his accolades, a prestigious honor among mead makers – and constantly tinkers with creative flavors.

But now he is calling on his marketing background to get the word out. He realizes simply chatting with customers who come in to taste by the small tasting bar, tongue-and-groove poplar reclaimed from old wallboard, isn't enough.

"We're really big," Waldeck said, "but no one around here knows we're big."

Crafted Artisan Meadery is the first meadery in Northern Ohio and second in the state, Waldeck said. Estimates vary for the number in the United States, but it's probably more than 200. Gotmead.com says Ohio has eight commercial meaderies, but the state doesn't differentiate among A-2 liquor-license holders, lumping in meaderies with wineries. There are 211 total wineries in the state, said Matt Mullins, spokesman at Ohio's Division of Liquor Control.

It's considered the world's oldest fermented drink, Waldeck said, dating to 9,000 BC. It received a bit of a popular-culture boost among the masses thanks to J.K. Rowling; characters in her Harry Potter series sip the alcoholic beverage.

Caught between beer and wine

Mead's place is a bit like a freshman in high school trying to find herself amid various cliques. Walk into a typical grocery store and you'll find hundreds of bottles of wine and scores of good, craft beer from all over the world. Where mead fits is the challenge.

"A winemaker is at the mercy of grapes, what comes off the vine," said Waldeck, 36. "The (beer) brewer is determining what is the best recipe. We float the middle."

Ironically, it was beer that led the Portage County native to mead.

A home brewer, he noticed "almost every good beer book has a section on mead." He "stumbled across" one of those sections about 10 years ago. Reading piqued curiosity, and curiosity led to doing. And in 2012 he opened his meadery.

Waldeck sees craft beer as competition more so than wine. And he makes no mistake which group mead naturally aligns with.

"The social conversation about mead is not about wine. It's going on in the beer community," said Waldeck, who attended Kent State and lived in North Carolina for a few years before returning to Northeast Ohio.

"When mead winds up on wine shelves (in stores) it collects dust," he said. But retailers decide where it goes. So a wine drinker who might enjoy a glass or two of mead might look past it if it's sitting next to a non-traditional varietal or blend – like dandelion wine, for instance.

"We tend to operate like a craft brewery," said Waldeck, who estimates that mead is "where craft beer was 15 years ago."

"You don't see us at wine events. You see us at beer events. It's kind of an interesting phenomenon when you see the craft-beer guys geeking out about mead."

About mead

Use grapes and you get wine. Use honey and you get mead. Mead is versatile: It can be strongly carbonated like a golden Belgian ale, or it can be as still as a smooth glass of Pinot Noir. It has varying residual sugar levels, so – like wines – it ranges from dry to sweet.

Most of Waldeck's meads are in the 6 to 12 percent alcohol range, more akin to beer than wine. Most of his retail in the $20 to $30 range (though the 500ml Pollinator is $8.99).

"Most of our mead we try to make extremely drinkable," he said.

That drinkability starts with the main ingredient, honey.

"What makes a mead a mead is when you use honey as your primary fermentable," said Waldeck, who added he went through 60,000 pounds of honey – an expensive proposition – in the past year. Much of it is wildflower honey from the Van Wert area near the Indiana border.

Different types, different tastes

Waldeck dispels the sweetness myth: "You have a lot of different takes on mead," he said. "People think mead has to be sweet."

Like brewers whose creativity knows few limits, Waldeck experiments. His Pollinator is a well-carbonated, award-winning, dry-hopped mead with blackberry. Its style is a "hopped blackberry honey wine" and while it is considered semi-sweet it is not cloying at all. It fizzes like Champagne, tastes a bit like a well-made cider, and has a hint of dryness like a good wheat beer. It is 6 percent alcohol. A portion of the proceeds goes to the OSU Bee Lab in Wooster, which researches Colony Collapse Disorder that affects hives.

One interesting benefit: Because honey is a natural anti-oxidant, once a bottle of mead is uncorked it tends not to lose its flavor as fast as wine might.

He also makes a Tupelo mead made with honey from Florida, where it is gathered for just a few weeks each year, and a Blue Honey Melomel (mead made with fruit) with blueberries from Michigan. He is working on a spiced mead for the holidays.

"We'll call it 'Harvest something.' " he said.

The future

Waldeck needs two things – help and space.

He is looking for a mead master to alleviate some of the time he devotes to his craft. He still works his full-time job for a marketing company. But he wants to spend a bit more time with his family; he and his wife have a 4-year-old and an 8-week-old baby.

Crafted Artisan Meadery's plan is about "controlled growth," Waldeck said, and to that end an expansion project involves a new, adjacent tasting-room that will have round-top bar tables, movie nights and storage room. He hopes to have it open this month. But his projected plan involves moving to a location.

"This is just a Band-Aid," he said.

"We have a good distribution footprint," Waldeck said. "It's a matter of what I put in that footprint."