Unleash the Unique Flavor of Wisteria & Lime Mead: A Refreshing Twist on a Classic Beverage

Mead ingredients floating in water.

Notice the bubbles forming at the top of the mead, indicating the yeast is active.

The filtered out plant materical and beeswax from the finished mead.

Finished mead with the beeswax floating on top.

Bottling the finished mead.

Finished mead in full bottles with labels.

Several weeks ago I began reading “The Art of Fermentation" by Sandor Katz. In one of  the chapters in the book he discusses wild ferments and mead.

Over the last year, I have been making fruit wine with primarily wild foraged ingredients and thought that mead would be a fun new adventure for 2025. I also wanted to try challenging myself by using only wild yeast for the mead and further added to the challenge by using limes. Citrus fruit is often a challenge to ferment with as it has a high acid content which can stall out the yeast.

Full of vim and vigor on a very cold January day, I began to make the mead. Adding the wild honey, sweet fern, wisteria, wineberry, and elderflower to a fermentation vessel. I gave it a big stir and patiently waited for the wild yeast to prove that it was alive and capable of assisting me in my endeavor.

The ferment was a little slower to start than the wines I have made using brewers yeast; due to several factors--wild yeast is almost always slower, the cold weather will cause ferments to develop more slowly, and the acid from the limes. But after about 5 days of patience and faithfully vigorously stirring, the yeast had begun to bubble and the fermentation process was well underway. I was thrilled that the mead appeared to be working and eagerly tasted it daily to make sure that it was developing properly.

You may be wondering: How did I know it was developing properly if I had never made mead before? Well, I have experience making wine and know what wine tastes like when it is developing properly and figured as long as there were no acrid smells or tastes and the surface remained mold and bacteria free that the mead was developing along the correct lines.

Each daily stir and taste brought a new experience and further heightened my excitement. Finally, about 2 weeks after the brewing began the yeast had made enough alcohol and had begun to die off. The fruit and flowers had stopped floating to the top of the vessel and the mixture was no longer bubbling when it was stirred. It was time to bottle the mead.

This began by skimming off as much of the beeswax from the top of the mead as possible. When using the whole honeycombe, the honey will dissolve and the remaining beeswax will float to the top. This can be reserved and used to make candles.

Next you will need to filter out the plant material from the mead. This can be done using cheesecloth, a sieve or some kitchen towels. For this batch I left most of the lees in the finished product, as they contain a lot of minerals and nutrients and I wanted the mead to be tasty and also nutritious. You can certainly filter out the lees for a clearer product but I felt that this particular batch would be nicer with most of them left in it.

Once the mead has been filtered to your satisfaction, pour it into bottles and seal them. I typically seal the bottles with plastic wrap and rubber bands. This has the benefit of allowing you to see if the plastic wrap inflates, thus indicating that fermentation is still happening and you can then release the pressure. Plastic wrap and rubber bands are also pliant enough that if you forget to check the bottles for continued fermentation, the gas will leak out slowly or simply pop the plastic wrap; preventing the whole bottle from exploding--something you may need to be worried about if you are using a more secured top.

Finally label the mead, this is very important. You will want to include all the ingredients used on the label and also the full date. This will allow you to know how long the mead has been aging in the bottle and also allow to you warn friends and family of potential interactions with medications that some ingredients may cause--grapefruit and mugwort are two examples of plants that something cause deleterious side effects when combined with certain medications.

To watch me make this recipe step by step click here.

Ingredients:

-600g combined of wild honey, wisteria blossoms preserved in sugar and wineberry preserves

-1 T of dried elderflowers

-2T of dried sweet fern leaves

-4 limes juiced

Method:

Add all ingredients above to a 3 gallon fermentation vessel and fill with water. Leave about 3-5 inches of head space at the top of the vessel to allow for fermentation to bubble up and prevent overflows.

Cover the top of the vessel with a porous covering like a tea towel or some cheese cloth; secured with a rubber band. The yeast needs to breath and you will need to be able to get into the vessel daily to stir; so make sure it is easy to remove.

Everyday stir the mead vigorously, until the plant material ceases to float and the mixture stops releasing bubbles.

Sieve out the plant material and beeswax.

Bottle the mead and seal the bottles.

Label and store until ready to drink!

Happy foraging!