The Art of Mead and Food Pairing: A Mead Appreciation Book From Chrissie Manion Zaerpoor

After countless bottles of mead, Chrissie Manion Zaerpoor, owner of Kookoolan world Meadery released the preeminent book on Mead Appreciation. Mead has come a long way from its reputation as a dusty medieval curiosity. It’s come out of the shadows into the hands of chefs, sommeliers, and craft beverage nerds who want something both ancient and innovative in their glass. Enter Chrissie Manion Zaerpoor’s The Art of Mead Tasting and Food Pairing.

This isn’t just another brewing manual or historical deep dive. It’s a comprehensive mead appreciation book that treats mead with the same respect and culinary curiosity usually reserved for wine. Whether you’re sipping your first melomel or curating a cellar of traditional varietals, this book is both a reference guide and an invitation to explore.

Mead has hit a stride in the craft beverage world, but resources are still rare. The Art of Mead Tasting and Food Pairing is the book that bridges the gap—equal parts educational, inspirational, and drool-worthy. It helps home meadmakers understand their own creations better, gives professionals fresh ideas for serving, and invites casual drinkers to explore mead with the same excitement they bring to wine or beer.

It’s no exaggeration to say this book belongs on every mead enthusiast’s shelf—or better yet, on their kitchen counter, with a bottle of mead open and something sizzling on the stove.

What’s Inside the Book?

Across 432 pages, Chrissie dives into the many styles, from honey-only traditional mead to fruit-forward melomels, spiced metheglins, and modern session meads—and shows you how to taste, pour, and most importantly, pair them with food.

Here’s a quick taste of what’s inside:

• 44 food recipes + 10 desserts paired with mead

• 14 mead cocktail recipes (including some from Meadist!)

• 60 sidebars highlighting meads, meaderies, meadmakers, and pairing tricks

• Guides on pairing mead with cheeses, snacks, vinegars, and even honey spirits

• A global perspective, exploring how mead developed alongside regional food traditions

With full-color photography, a ribbon bookmark, and coffee-table-worthy design, this is a book you’ll actually want to leave out where people can see it.

A Labor of Love (and Lots of Mead)

The depth of this book comes from Chrissie’s decades of passion for all things mead. In her own words:

Writing this book took some twenty years of hobby mead-drinking, meadmaking, and pairings; three years of running a mead-only bottle shop; five years of judging at Mazer Cup, four years of serious writing and cooking and tasting and photographing, and opening some 600 bottles of mead contributed by meaderies from all over the world! I spent the first ten years of my adulthood on a quest for my first sip of mead, and could not even have imagined how much mead I would have access to over the past four or five years! Bringing this book to fruition has been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever finished!

That kind of dedication makes the book book feel more like an honest love letter to mead than just a reference guide.

Mead has finally hit a stride in the craft beverage world, but resources that take it seriously are still rare. The Art of Mead Tasting and Food Pairing is the book that bridges the gap. It helps home mead makers understand their own creations better, gives professionals fresh ideas for serving, and invites casual drinkers to explore mead with the same excitement they bring to wine or beer.