Mead We Say More?

Producing and retailing mead, Ernst Thompson and Robert Bernatzeder aim to establish it as a mainstream alcoholic beverage in African society and tell its story on the continent.

- NICK SAID

MEAD IS THE FIRST ALCOHOLIC DRINK connected to humans and is thought to have originated in Africa some 20,000 years ago, but along with the Vikings and other medieval marauders has largely been surpassed by modern equivalents.

That is until now.

Made from fermented honey, mead is growing in popularity again thanks in a large part to the television series Game of Thrones and the throngs of its followers who lap up every detail of the show to replicate in their daily lives.

“Many people in South Africa don’t know what mead is, despite the fact it is a real African drink,” Dr Ernst Thompson, owner of Cape Town Meadery, tells FORBES AFRICA.

“It is massive in the United States. Popular culture has commercialized it there over the last 10 or 12 years and it is the fastest-growing alcoholic sector.”

In South Africa, mead was a way for the Khoisan people to ‘speak to the Gods’ and is known as iQhilika in the country’s Eastern Cape province, where it remains a popular drink with cultural significance.

But it is a tiny market in what is a huge beverage industry in the country, something Thompson is hoping to change having partnered with brother-in-law and fellow entrepreneur Robert Bernatzeder.

Their meadery, the only one of its kind in South Africa, bottles traditional products, as well as mead-based sparkling wines and beers.

“The beauty of the technology we use is that it was developed in South Africa and based on indigenous knowledge,” Thompson says.