Mead is made by fermenting honey with water and yeast. The honey provides sugar, yeast converts that sugar into alcohol, and the resulting drink is matured and finished before bottling.

Yes. Mead is naturally gluten-free. Mead is made by fermenting honey with water and yeast, rather than grains such as wheat, barley or rye.

New Zealand has honeys produced from plants found nowhere else in the world, including mānuka, kānuka, kamini and pohutokawa, alongside distinctive native bush and forest honeys.

Last week, the most highly trained palate in NZ tasted our mead and provided careful review.

A good gift for someone who has everything usually comes down to three options: give them an experience, give them something they can consume, or introduce them to something they haven't discovered before.

A well-made, properly bottled mead can remain drinkable for years, and some styles are capable of ageing for decades. Historically, particularly rich meads were deliberately matured for extraordinary lengths of time.

There is no single way to drink mead. Mead can range from light and refreshing through to rich, strong drinks that are closer to port or whisky in how they are served.

Because mead is made from honey, people often assume that the finished drink will be very sweet. In reality, mead can range from completely bone dry through to rich dessert-style sweetness. How sweet it ends up is a decision made by the mead maker.

We recently took over Moon Under Water in Christchurch for a Guided Mead Experience, putting four quite different meads in front of each guest

“I love wine, but after one or two glasses I get a headache. I don't get that with your mead” is one of the more satisfying comments we hear from customers at Undisturbed.

Lavender fields require pollination. So to take a by product of agriculture and turn it into something exceptional - is a great feeling. It’s also my favourite tasting mead to date.

For eight days this winter, we had the privilege of introducing hundreds of people to mead from our pop-up mead bar in central Christchurch.

Your 2026 guide to NZ Mead.

Mulled mead and mulled wine are both traditional winter drinks served warm with spices, but they are made from very different ingredients.

One of the most common questions people ask about mead is simple: what does it actually taste like?

Our first mead tasting event was held at Punky Brewster, Christchurch as we launched our winter seasonal edition - Mulled Mānuka Mead on tap.

New Zealand mead making is still in its relative infancy, commercially at least. As it stands today, Undisturbed is the only meadery in the world (that we know of) primarily focused on bringing forth the flavour of Aotearoa flora.

In February, we put the 2025 Mānuka Special Reserve through blind judging at the Mead Madness International Competition in Poland. We’re thrilled with the results:

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