Liz Biro

liz.biro@indystar.com

What may be the oldest drink in the world is the newest thing at the bar.

No, it's not water. It's mead, a honey-based spirit dating so far back into antiquity that historians consider it the mother of all alcoholic beverages.

You might vaguely remember seeing mead mentioned in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Maybe you recall it from "The Cantebury Tales" that Chaucer-obsessed high school English teacher forced you to read.

Mead was hot in the Middle Ages. Archeologists document evidence of mead's existence as long ago as 7000 BC. Historians speculate that shortly after humans discovered bee hives, they realized honey mixed with water and left to sit would at some point become happy juice.

If, like many people, you've never heard of mead, prepare to be clued-in.

Mead sales have exploded, jumping 130 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to the American Mead Makers Association. Yes, there's an association, founded in 2011 because mead sales were rising so rapidly, eclipsing the growth of craft beer by some estimations.

"It's taken off like wildfire," Tia Agnew said.

Agnew and her husband, Brett Canaday, own New Day, a craft mead and cider operation in Indianapolis' Fountain Square neighborhood. The couple started making mead around 2000 as way to use up the 500 pounds of honey that the hives on Canaday's Elwood family farm were producing.

Agnew and Canaday enjoyed making mead, thought they were good at it and, in 2006, began hawking their wine-style mead for about $20 a bottle at farmers markets. In 2010, they opened New Day as a niche business. Four years later, they're using tons of honey and looking at regional and national distribution.

The big turning point for New Day was carbonation, Agnew said.

"We thought, 'Oh, this will be fun,' " Agnew recalled.

Mead traditionally is a still wine, created simply by fermenting honey with water. The outcome can be cloying or, if poorly made, sour or rotten flavored.

Still mead has a fan-base, and the style is where Agnew, a wildlife biologist, and Canaday, a food scientist, began. But the couple added fruit, as many mead makers, known as mazers, have done over the years.

Sales blossomed.

"For every one bottle of wine-style mead, I would sell a hundred growlers (of carbonated mead)."

In 2013, New Day switched to all carbonated meads. Due to customer demand, in March the pair launched mead in 16.5-ounce bottles.

At New Day's stylish tasting room, part mod, part American-craft décor, Agnew and Canady offer bottled mead, mead on tap and mead cocktails akin to champagne cocktails.

A recent tasting started as many do, with an apprehensive customer. Often, mead newbies or those revisiting the beverage worry that it will be too sweet, Agnew said.

She regularly changes minds. New Day usually has at least five meads available. Numbers vary, as selections sell out quickly. Choices range from dry, buff-hued Snap Dragon, an apricot mead made with coriander, orange peel, Hallertan hops and Belgian wit yeast, to ruby red Live Currant, a black currant blend that Agnew calls "a sweet-tart in a glass."

Fine bubbles and balanced flavors provide refreshing drinks hardly broadcasting their high alcohol content, most in the eight percent range.

Some New Day meads are seasonal, such as winter's popular Breakfast Magpie, a rich blackberry and espresso mead with deep black raspberry notes mixed with chocolate and coffee flavors. Others are aged in bourbon barrels. Coming soon are meads aged in gin barrels, Agnew said. Find New Day meads not just at company headquarters but also at liquor stores, food markets and restaurants.

After a mead flight, the hesitant taster is a convert with plans to return.

"Well, I've just discovered mead," he said.

Agnew beamed.

"My favorite customer is the skeptic," she said.

"Mead is not a one-dimensional product," Agnew explained. "Just like you have an open mind about craft beer, have an open mind about mead."

Call Liz Biro at (317) 444-6264. Follow her on Twitter @lizbiro, Instagram and Facebook. Email her at elizabeth.biro@indystar.com