England, my mother, Lift to my Western Sweetheart One full cup of English mead, breathing of the May.
So sang British Poet Alfred Noyes in America, My Sweetheart. Last week Britain was lifting a cup of mead to its American sweetheart, but the cup breathed less of May than of dollars. For the first time in 400 years, the English had turned to the manufacture of mead, a wine (fermented from honey) which was the drink of kings and commoners in England from Beowulf to Henry VIII.* At the village of
Gulval, near Penzance, the Worshipful Company of Mead Makers paraded...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
