It probably gave early humans a jolt when they sampled beehives left out in the rain. It was offered up as a libation to Zeus. It was the drink of choice for Bacchus long before grape wine was in vogue. It was quaffed by Vikings prior to going out and exerting their masculinity. And it frequented the pubs where Shakespeare wrote some of the greatest lines in literary history.

And now mead, the nectar of the gods, is making a comeback.

"Mead is hip, and mead is fun, and mead is here and now," says David Myers, the Boulder brewer who hopes to lead an alcohol revolution by taking inebriants back to their roots.

Myers has been a home beer brewer since the late 1980s, but decided not to jump onto the hops and barley bandwagon last year when he founded his own business. He instead delved into the ancient art of wine made from fermented honey, opening Redstone Meadery at 4700 Pearl St.

Myers was acting on an independent, entrepreneurial streak that runs in his family. His grandfather was a Jewish tailor who invented a new way to sew wash-and-wear fabrics, eventually becoming owner of London Fog.

"I’ve always had the premise that if I’m going to work for a schmuck it’s going to be me," says Myers with a chuckle.

Myers, by nature, is an upbeat, talkative guy. You probably would be too, walking around your own successful meadery at 11:30 a.m. holding a glass of sparkling libation.

"People really enjoy the secrets and the magic and the history of mead," says Myers, touring the huge metal tanks and network of pipes that turn unadulterated honey into honey wine.

Redstone is somewhat of an anomaly, even amid its few peers in the mead industry. While most meaderies create their merchandise by adding fruit and honey to water sterilized with sulfites, Myers actually brews his mead, blending hot water and honey together so that it pasteurizes, fermenting naturally with no added yeast or sulfites.

"Instead of the Immaculate Conception, it’s Spontaneous Fermentation," say Myers.

After the mead is done fermenting, it is filtered, bottled and labeled, a process that is still largely done by hand. With their equipment, Myers’ staff can bottle about 375 bottles an hour.

Nectars, Myers’ beer-like concoction, ferment for nine to 11 days. Other meads with higher alcohol contents are left to ferment for longer periods of time.

Redstone goes through a ton of honey each month, much of it purchased from Colorado beekeepers. Most of the meads are made using two honeys–clover honey and alfalfa honey, for example–but Myers, a home brewer at heart, is always willing to experiment with what he calls "fun honeys," and so each hand-crafted batch is always a little bit unique.

There’s another element in all of Redstone’s meads, unabashedly listed on the labels under ingredients (right after potassium sorbate) as "The Love."

The Love is evident all around Redstone. Music is always playing over the loudspeakers, and Myers encourages all his employees to bring in their own favorite tunes, saying it improves the product. Electric blankets are often wrapped around control tanks in the winter to keep them from getting too cold. Sure, no one gets to mush grapes with their feet, but one of the top five reasons Myers likes making mead is this: "It’s sticky."

Thankfully, all that playing leads to some pretty tasty stuff.

Redstone offers a range of meads, from nectars, which are served cold and sparkling and contain eight percent alcohol, to Mountain Honey Wines, stored like wine and containing 12 percent alcohol. Unlike the sickly sweet after-dinner liquor which mead might first bring to mind, Redstone’s products cover a gamut of taste sensations, from sparkling raspberry nectar to a dry Pinot Noir honey wine to a vanilla bean and cinnamon stick honey wine perfect for warming and sipping on a wintry afternoon. And it’s all surprisingly light and very, very yummy.

And then there’s David’s Reserve. This delicacy sells for $50 a bottle, and each batch is made using some 770 pounds of honey. Made once a year, it typically has a wait list of 150 to 200 people.

"We’re not beer. We’re not wine. Mead is versatile. That’s the point," says Myers, explaining that he can provide meads to complement a five- to seven-course meal.

Redstone even offers a list of possible cocktails made from their wares. Anyone for a Mead Tai or a Nectarita?

Not long ago the arrival of a single check in the mail was cause for a company-wide celebration at Redstone. But their product is quickly catching on.

The one-man company has now expanded to five employees and Redstone’s meads are available at almost a hundred liquor stores and restaurants statewide, including Liquor Mart, Ras Kassas Ethiopian Restaurant and "the Pub" at Rockies Brewing Company in Boulder. Myers hopes to double Redstone’s sales over the next couple of years, expanding throughout Colorado, into Arizona and through central Florida.

But the Patron Saint of Mead has even more grandiose hopes–he plans to recreate the drinking world, one honey wine at a time.

"We’ve tried to create a company that is in and of itself an educational tool," he says. "When you start a revolution, you take it one step at a time in the early days."

Meaderies are where microbreweries were in the ’80s, says Myers: on the edge of widespread popularity. The mead industry has doubled in the past five years to about 40 to 50 mead-exclusive producers in the nation. Myers says that Redstone has taken the lead in spreading the word about honey wine, and he hopes to help push the number of meaderies past the 100 mark in the near future.

"I don’t have competition," he says. "I have comrades."

But Myers still has to find a way to solve the mead industry’s biggest challenge: how can you get people to order mead at the bar if they don’t even know what it is?

When Myers and his peers ask people if they want some mead, all too often they hear the dreaded response, "No thanks, I’m a vegetarian."

So join the revolution. Head to your local bar and demand fermented honey. Or stop in at Redstone–Myers will gladly pour you a free glass of nectar (no doubt having one himself) and tell you a tale or two. If it was good enough for Bacchus, Zeus, Beowulf and Shakespeare, it’s good enough for you.

Redstone Meadery
4700 Pearl St., #2A
Boulder, CO 80301
720-406-1215
http://redstonemeadery.com
1/2 hour tours: 3 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 12:30 p.m. Saturday
Tasting room open 3:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Saturday
Or call for a private appointment