Mead "pyment". Mulled mead is a popular drink at Christmas time, where mead is flavored with spices (and sometimes various fruits) and warmed, traditionally by having a hot poker plunged into it. Some meads retain some measure of the sweetness of the original honey, and some may even be considered as dessert wines. Drier meads are also available, and some producers offer sparkling meads. There are faux-meads, which are actually wines with honey added after fermentation as a sweetener and flavoring. Historically, meads were fermented with wild yeasts and bacteria (as noted in the recipe quoted above) residing on the skins
Mead mead may be known by the style represented; for instance, a mead made with cinnamon and apples may be referred to as either a cinnamon "cyser" or an apple metheglin. A mead that also contains spices (such as cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg), or herbs (such as meadowsweet, hops, or even lavender or chamomile), is called a "metheglin" . A mead that contains fruit (such as raspberry, blackberry or strawberry) is called a "melomel", which was also used as a means of food preservation, keeping summer produce for the winter. A mead that is fermented with grape juice is called a