ZAMBIAN
MEADERY
Distillation is more than a Craft, it is an Art
This guidebook is designed to provide a foundation for sharing the rich stories behind mead and its evolution into something truly extraordinary—Alvearium Gin. It will help you craft your own way of presenting and teaching others about this unique spirit, inspired by centuries of tradition yet shaped by modern innovation.
The team behind Zambian Meadery has long been dedicated to the revival and reimagination of mead, crafting beverages that honor history while pushing the boundaries of sustainability. Through this journey, we developed Alvearium Gin—the world’s most sustainable gin, distilled entirely from pure honey.
Rooted in the ancient mead-making traditions of Africa, Alvearium Gin embodies the connection between nature, community, and craftsmanship. Every bottle supports local beekeepers, preserves wild ecosystems, and showcases the depth of African botanical flavors. More than just a gin, it is a tribute to the resilience of bees, the ingenuity of mead makers, and the legacy of a drink that has united people for millennia.
With Alvearium, we invite you to explore the past while enjoying a spirit that is unmistakably modern. Whether sipped in a cocktail or savored neat, this gin bridges tradition and innovation, offering a taste of history redefined for today.
What exactly is Mead?
The World’s Oldest Alcoholic Beverage
Mead is one of the earliest known alcoholic beverages, dating back thousands of years and deeply rooted in various cultures across the world.
At its core, mead is made by fermenting honey and water with yeast, where the natural sugars in honey are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This process creates a unique drink with a smooth, honeyed character, often complemented by notes of fruit, spices, or herbs. The alcohol content varies but is generally higher than beer and wine. Mead can be enjoyed chilled, at room temperature, or even warmed, depending on preference.
Across different regions, mead has evolved into diverse styles, each influenced by local traditions and ingredients. Traditional mead consists of just honey, water, and yeast, while a Melomel incorporates fruit for added depth and sweetness. Metheglin is infused with spices or herbs, creating a more aromatic experience, and Pyment blends honey with grapes, bridging the worlds of mead and wine. These variations showcase the versatility of mead, a drink that has stood the test of time while continuing to evolve.
Production Of Alvearium
Alvearium Gin is crafted through an innovative process. Unlike conventional gins made from grain or cane-based spirits, Alvearium is distilled entirely from mead, an age-old fermented honey beverage.
The journey begins with pure African honey, sourced from pristine, untouched forests where bees thrive in their natural habitat. This honey is carefully fermented with water and wild yeast to create Mead. Once fermentation is complete, the mead undergoes a triple distillation process, refining it into a luxuriously smooth, velvety spirit.
To achieve a balanced and sophisticated profile, the distilled mead is infused with a carefully selected blend of botanicals, featuring aromatic spices and citrus. The result is a crisp, refreshing gin with a delicate, lingering warmth, offering both complexity and indulgence in every sip.
Beyond its remarkable flavor, Alvearium Gin embodies sustainability, requiring only a fraction of the water used in traditional gin production. Every bottle not only delivers a premium drinking experience but also contributes to the preservation of Africa’s carbon-rich forests and supports local beekeeping communities.
This is gin redefined—crafted with purpose, rooted in nature, and designed for those who appreciate authenticity, sustainability, and innovation.
PRESERVING AND PROTECTING NATURE
We are dedicated to reviving the origin stories of mead and celebrating the rich narratives and traditions of African cultures. Our passion lies in redefining the alcohol industry with sustainability at the core, ensuring that every sip contributes to both heritage and environmental preservation.
Unlike conventional wines and grain-based spirits, our mead-derived gin has a 95% smaller ecological footprint, crafted entirely from pure African honey sourced from untouched, carbon-rich forests. By working directly with local honey farmers, we not only support livelihoods but also help safeguard the Miombo woodlands, where wild bees flourish. Beekeeping plays a crucial role in incentivizing sustainable forest management, offering an alternative to deforestation-driven livelihoods and agriculture.
Honey production is inherently eco-friendly—honeybees are essential pollinators, sustaining biodiversity and maintaining healthy ecosystems. By fostering responsible honey harvesting, we help protect bee populations, ensuring the preservation of plant and animal life across these vital landscapes.
Beyond its impact on biodiversity, Alvearium Gin actively contributes to forest conservation. The honey we source comes from indigenous African forests with high carbon sequestration potential, meaning that every bottle consumed helps conserve 25m² of forest for an entire year, preventing it from being cleared for agriculture.
We truly believe that sustainability and craftsmanship go hand in hand—creating a spirit that not only tastes exceptional but also leaves a lasting positive impact on the planet.
Beehives and Farming practices
Sustainable Beekeeping: Ethical Honey Production
For thousands of years, beekeeping has supported both ecosystems and communities. Today, Kenyan top-bar hives offer a sustainable approach, allowing wild bee colonies to thrive naturally while producing honey in a controlled, eco-friendly way.
In the Miombo woodlands, where the environment remains largely untouched by industrial agriculture, these hives provide a regenerative alternative to traditional honey collection. By mimicking natural hive structures, they promote biodiversity, enhance pollination, and ensure responsible honey production without disturbing delicate ecosystems.
We ensure that every drop of honey in our gin is ethically sourced, sustainably harvested, and deeply connected to conservation, preserving both the environment and the communities that depend on it.
Stories from Africa
Mythical Origins of mead
Centuries ago, in Africa, particularly wet summer rainfall has caused the hollow of a Baobab tree to flood. Not just any baobab however, one that was once the refuge to a colony of bees. You see, I speak of the days when elephants would roam freely across the vast African plains. As they grazed on the flourishing flora, they tore away large branches from the trees while getting to the delicious fruit far above. This in turn caused weak points that over time, would hollow out.
Unwittingly they created a perfect shelter wherein the buzzing bees could nestle their hives. When the summer rains came and slowly filled up the hollows, the hives would flood with water. As the days passed a high-sugar environment was created by the honey and osmotolerant yeast began to thrive. Slowly as this cocktail began to ferment a delicious mead was created, known in the San language as !karri.
A Toast to the Origins of the Honeymoon
Long before extravagant getaways and tropical escapes, the honeymoon was something far more symbolic—rooted in the ancient tradition of mead.
In centuries past, newlyweds were gifted enough mead to last an entire lunar cycle, a gesture meant to bring good fortune, prosperity, and a sweet beginning to their life together. This golden elixir, made from pure honey, was believed to foster love, happiness, and fertility, making it an essential part of wedding celebrations. The term itself traces back to Old English—“hony moone”, a reference to the tradition of drinking mead for a full month after the wedding. Over time, this evolved into what we now call the honeymoon, a period of romance and new beginnings.
Though the rituals may have changed, the sentiment remains. A sip of mead today is more than just a drink—it’s a nod to an age-old tradition, a toast to love, and a reminder that some things, like honey and happily ever after’s, are timeless.
The Greater Honeyguide – Indicator, Indicator.
The Greater Honeyguide, scientific name Indicator indicator, does exactly as his name describes and facilitates the rare behaviour of human and animal mutualism. Many African tribes and honey-hunters summon this large bird using a unique call. The honeyguide, answering the call flies ahead in the direction of the largest beehive it could find to present it to the humans.
Honeyguides have large olfactory glands allowing them to use smell as an advantage in locating beehives. Upon finding, smoking out the bees and raiding the hive, hunters would then gift the honeyguide some leftover wax as a token of gratitude for its service.
Folklore
Bees and their honey play a significant role in the lives of the Khoi and San in their creation stories. One such story begins with the trickster deity, /Kaggen, often appearing as a praying mantis in the stories of the /Xam bushmen of Southern Africa. Believed to have created the mighty Eland from a piece of his sandal, /Kaggen would seek out a beehive every day and cut honey to feed the growing animal.
Eland spends the days in the reeds, appearing only when his creator calls after having laid out the honeycomb on a stone. By caring for the growing Eland /Kaggen stops finding honey for his family, who grow suspicious and jealous. One day when the deity is out hunting for honeycomb, the family slays the Eland. When /Kaggen finds a beehive, it is not fat but dry, and it seems as though red blood has taken the place of the honey. This is the moment the trickster deity realises his family’s betrayal.
Connections exist between honey and many animals in the stories of the Khoi and San people. /Kaggen, would feed each of his creations with different parts of a beehive, thus believed to determine their colours.
The Gemsbok was fed with the ‘!Khou //Kie !kuita’, which roughly translates to “bee liquid that is white” and means liquid honey.
The Hartbees received its dark red colours because it was fed ‘//Ka’ which means “comb of young bees” and signifies brood comb and by nature has a dark brown/red colour.
The springbok has light honey-brown tones with a white underbelly. This is achieved from being fed ‘//ki’ meaning “little bees” and it implies the larvae, which when chewed produces a white like substance.
Figure reference – A section of the Cederberg rock painting, digitally enhanced to emphasise red-ochreous colours. © Neil Rusch
The incredible instrument – !Goin !Goin
Archaeologists used acoustic methods to study a rock painting in South Africa’s Cederberg Mountains, initially thought to depict healers with fly-whisks in a trance-dance. However, their research revealed that the fly-whisks were actually musical instruments called !goin !goin, which create sound when spun around their axes.
The instrument was used over 2000 years ago based on the age of the painting, and it generated a distinct pulsating sound. When multiple !goin !goin were played together, they offered compositional possibilities, producing layered musical creations. The instrument’s sound was associated with rain and honeybees, used by both men and women for rainmaking purposes.
Bringing Alvearium into Your World: A Guide to Elevating Your Space
Here are but a few ways in which you can introduce your guests to our Mead. Tailor these to your unique offerings
Zambia
A large portion of the honey produced in Zambia is used to make Wala wa ndoka and Wala wa kasolu meads. These raise the status of the beekeeper when they are served at social gatherings and are used as currency for barter. An essential part of this brewing process is the addition of brood and pollen to the mix which is then placed into a calabash and sealed to ferment. Sweet beer is also a popular local beverage in Zambia called Mulava/Mulaba. Its ingredients include, maize, mead, water, honey and the roots of a perennial herb shrub – Rhynchosia Insignis. Zambia falls inside the historical region where Khoi-San added roots to their mead recipes, this in turn still influences recipes in Zambia today.
Angola
In the southern Angolan baobab savannah, the hives which were built by bees during the dry seasons inside the baobab trunks fermented once the rains came and the contents began to rot. This resulted in a fermented honey wine discovered by the Khoi-San. At a later stage the San hunters (working for the SANDF) also enjoyed coming across these on their journeys.
Kenya
The Kenyan recipe for mead includes honeycomb with brood and pollen, and loofah fruits (genus luffa). These fruits are there to inoculate the yeast and are dried between batches. Kenya’s honey and mead production, geographically falls closest to the most northern Khoi-San range, which dates back 10 000 years.
Botswana
Mead is known to have a cultural significance in Botswana and the hives near the urban areas are often cleared out due to high demand for the beverage. In the Kgalagadi trans frontier park (across Botswana and South Africa) the San people made their mead with Honey, a mix of various herbs and parts of the nests from social weaver birds. These nests are large structures made of grass and contain grain-filled dung. There is however, little research and record on the size of Botswana’ local mead production.
Ethiopia
Bees have a deep cultural significance in Ethiopia, making an appearance in their national anthem – “…Ethiopia land of our fathers the land where our God wants to be like bees to a hive swiftly gather…”. Ethiopia is the largest honey producer in Africa, with an annual production of 24 000 metric tons stemming from 10 million managed beehives. 80% of the total honey production is converted to mead. Tej or Mies (the local name for mead) includes a herb called Gesho (Rhamnus Prinoides) which is added during the fermentation process. This herb is specifically cultivated as a commercial crop and used for added flavour in the Tej, and once it has been used the remains are fed to the donkeys.
Tanzania
In Tanzania mead holds great cultural significance and is required at every ceremony. Gourds believed to carry ancestral brewing wisdom are passed down through generations. Local custom ensures beeswax is not removed from the beverage and brood and pollen are added to strengthen it as well as invigorate the yeast.
There are two primary meads made in Tanzania, namely Besuda from the Baraig tribe, and Ganguli and Xangay from the Iraqw tribes (Xangay being a beer which is further mixed with honey much like a Braggot). The honey in Tanzania is sold in the comb, which means there are no beeswax sales from which to accurately estimate the quantity of mead produced throughout the country. However, the hives have a much higher output than those in northern Zambia meaning their mead production would be much larger.
South Africa
The first to create and establish mead making techniques were the Khoi-San in Africa. Their recipes, like the techniques still used in the Eastern Cape of South Africa today included roots of Imoela/Karimoer (Trichodiadema plant), Honey, Brood and pollen extracts, water and occasionally different seasonal fruits as additional sugar and taste sources. The Eastern Cape has the largest measure of Indigenous Knowledge Systems of ancient mead making practices. Here they prepare the Trichodiadema root through four different wash cycles and once dried, it is called Imoela and is ready for brewing.
History (relevant?) – In South Africa traditional mead and beverage making was outlawed during the early 1900’s. This was further impacted after the general requirements for mead making was introduced through the ‘South African Liquor Products Act 27 of 1989’. These guidelines excluded a large portion of mazers from being part of the legal alcohol industry as the traditional methods were varied and did not fall into the narrow brackets of production as presented in this act.