Thanks to blood moon i came to know what mead was and i ended up trying it, not the greatest taste if ya ask me. :rofl: :rofl:
Ohh, okay. I'm gonna have to step in here, in defense of my favorite alcohol... because in general, it's done wrong, and I agree than nine times out of ten the stuff you can find on supermarket shelves is absolutely horrid.
The #1 problem is sulphites. IMO they're not great in wine, but they
completely ruin the flavor of mead. To avoid this, find an organic brand -- my favorite is http://www.honeyrunwinery.com/scripts/winepg.cfm/_/5/Dry%20Mead/. (It's cheap, too!)
The other thing to think about is the fact that back in those days, the main function of alcohol was to keep water safe to drink. (Farther east, they used tea for this. I think many differences between western and eastern culture can be traced to booze vs. caffeine as the ubiquitous liquid contaminant.) It needed to actually quench thirst, so except for things we'd think of as "hard liquor," almost everything was weaker than today's average beer -- they still got plenty drunk because this was the only safe drink they had, but the alcohol content per sip was much lower. Bottled meads today are sold as wine, which means an alcohol percentage in the low teens; but for a more authentic mead-hall experience, you should water it down! I often cut Ragnar's to 1/3 or even 1/4 strength, and I use seltzer water - less authentic, but hey, fizzy.