The question of what to drink while reading is not trivial. The wrong choice is a distraction. Whisky demands attention — its heat and complexity pull you out of the page. Commercial wine is thin and forgettable, gone before you have noticed it. What you want is something that sits quietly alongside the book, present but not intrusive, interesting enough to reward a sip between chapters but not so demanding that it competes with the prose.
Mead, made well, is that drink. This is the case for it.
The Problem with Whisky
Whisky is a drink that asks something of you. A good single malt has layers of smoke, fruit, oak, vanilla, and salt, and to appreciate them properly you need to be paying attention. That is fine when whisky is the point of the evening. When the book is the point, it becomes a problem.
The alcohol content is also an issue. At 40–46% ABV, whisky is not a drink you sip continuously over two hours without consequence. The pace it demands is incompatible with reading. You either drink too little to enjoy it, or too much to read properly. There is no comfortable middle ground.
None of this is a criticism of whisky. It is a magnificent drink in the right context. The right context is not a reading chair.
The Problem with Wine
Commercial wine has the opposite problem. It is not demanding enough. A glass of unremarkable Sauvignon Blanc or a mid-range Merlot is perfectly pleasant, but it offers nothing to return to. You drink it without thinking about it, which means you might as well be drinking water with a slight headache attached.
Good wine avoids this problem but creates another one. A serious Burgundy or a well-aged Rioja deserves attention in the same way whisky does. You cannot give it the consideration it merits while also following a plot. You end up shortchanging both the wine and the book.
"Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew."
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1836
What You Actually Want
The ideal reading drink has a few specific qualities. It should be low enough in alcohol that you can drink it slowly over an extended period without losing the thread of what you are reading. It should have enough character to be worth returning to, rewarding attention without demanding it. And it should be served at a temperature that stays comfortable as it warms slightly in the glass.
Mead satisfies all of these. At 11–13% ABV it sits comfortably in the range where you can drink a glass over an hour without difficulty. Its flavour — floral, warm, gently sweet — is present and interesting without being insistent. It is still, not sparkling. And it is served lightly chilled, which means it warms gradually in the glass to something close to room temperature, changing subtly as it does.
That last quality is underrated. A drink that changes as you sit with it gives you something to notice without requiring you to notice it. It is there when you look up from the page. It does not interrupt.
The right drink does not compete with the book. It accompanies it.
On Sweetness
Most commercial meads are not particularly sweet. Many are dry to the point of austerity, with a thin, bitter finish that puts people off the drink entirely. That is a shame, because it misrepresents what mead can be.
We brew ours to be genuinely enjoyable. The honey character is present and forward, the sweetness is real, and we make no apology for that. What we avoid is the cloying, syrupy quality that comes from stopping fermentation too early. The result sits in a range that is warm and approachable without being sickly — sweet enough to be interesting over a long sitting, not so sweet that you tire of it.
The Traditional and Vanilla are the fullest expressions of this. The Elderflower is lighter, the honey lifted by the floral character of the blossom. Any of the three works well for reading. The Dark Berry is slightly drier and more complex, better suited to a shorter sitting.
A Note on the Glass
This is a small point, but it is worth making. The glass you use affects the experience more than most people expect. A wide-bowled wine glass allows the aroma to develop as the mead warms, which is part of what makes it interesting to return to. A narrow glass — a tumbler, a mug — closes off that dimension entirely.
We are not precious about this. Drink it however you like. But if you have a wine glass available, use it. The difference is noticeable, and noticing it is part of the point.
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954
The Honest Case
We make mead. We are not a disinterested party in this argument. That is worth acknowledging.
But the case for mead as a reading drink does not rest on our saying so. It rests on what the drink actually is: a still, moderately alcoholic, gently complex beverage that rewards slow consumption and improves as it warms. Those qualities are not marketing. They are the natural result of how mead is made and what honey tastes like when it has been fermented carefully and given time.
Try it with a book you have been meaning to read. Give it an evening. We think you will find that the two things suit each other rather well.
Written by Amy, Kennard & Co · February 2026
