Mead in Poland which the 12th-century chronicler Gallus Anonymus described as "flowing with honey". This abundance of honey and a climate ill-suited for grape growing meant that mead was long more popular than wine. In 996, the Sephardi Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub wrote that "besides food, meat and land for ploughing, the country of Mieszko I abounds in mead, which is what the Slavic wines and intoxicating drinks are called". In the 15th century, the Venetian diplomat Ambrogio Contarini observed that "having no wine, [the Poles] make a certain drink out of honey, which intoxicates people much more than wine." The 16th-century
Mead in Poland Polish poet praised the "nutritious and healthy" mead of Ruthenia (then part of Poland, now in western Ukraine) as a "nectar" worthy of Olympian gods, as opposed to wine. Notwithstanding the popular notion that mead used to be the everyday drink in Poland, it has always been a luxury good, reserved for special occasions, such as weddings, and available only to the affluent, while beer was the daily thirst quencher of the common people. Mead was valuable enough to be deemed a suitable gift for monasteries and dignitaries. The oldest known recipe for mead was recorded in 1567 by the