The Family Tree of Fermented Drinks

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Most people aren’t familiar with the family tree of the various adult beverages we drink. They don’t always group together quite the way you’d think, and I think it’s worth a quick look.

The Three Main Families

By and large, fermented drinks break down into three basic families: Beers, Wines, and Meads. The separating factor is the source of the sugars for the yeast to ferment. It looks something like this:

Fermented Drink Family Tree, "Primary Colors"
“Primary Colors” of fermented drinks

Basically, if the sugars are broken out from starches–generally from grains–you’re looking at a beer.

If the sugars are from fruits, it’s wine.

If they’re from honey, it’s mead.

Bad Naming Practices

These classifications can lead to some confusion, mostly rooted in what I’ll call “alternative modern naming.”  Mead, for instance, is often called “honey wine.” While that gets the point across to someone who is unfamiliar, it’s less than completely accurate. Mead is mead; no more, no less.

Similarly, sake is commonly called “rice wine.” The base of sake is rice, which is to say, starch. This is broken down by aspergillium fungi into sugars; the sugars are then fermented by saccharomyces species. Being starch-based, it’s therefore not a wine, but a beer.

Then there are the issues of things that have developed their own names: cider, particularly, and its lesser-known cousin perry. Most people would separate them out as their own individual things–but they’re from pressed fruit, and thus wines. Yes, they’re particular types of wine–but they’re still wine.

Hybrids

As with the color wheel we all remember from grade-school art class, it is possible to take these “primary colors” of drinks and blend them into new “colors.” For example, if you make meads that include fruit sugars, you have what are known as “melomels.” And within the melomels, there are particular names depending on the fruit. Apples get you cyser; grapes get you pyment. Pears are perry, which is also the name for pear cider, which is confusing. There are dozens of others.

Conversely, a cross between beer and mead is called “braggot.” These are typically big, malty, strong drinks. They’re usually hopped, but it’s not absolutely necessary for the style. Brewer’s choice as to what the “base” beer style is, as well–although matching them with different honeys is a bit of an art form.

Crossing beer with fruit gets a fruit beer. There’s not really a better name for them, unfortunately… With the fruit beers, the mix tends to skew heavy on the “beer” side. I can’t recall ever seeing a “wine with malt added;” I should think that getting that right would be tricky. (Note to self: do some small-batch experimentation with this…)

Then there’s what you get when you mix all three “primary types,” the mysterious middle of the triangle. Colors tend to get muddy here, and if you just toss drinks together willy-nilly, they will too. But there are commercial beverages that go this direction. Midas Touch is one, as is Chateau Jiahu, both by Dogfish Head. Historically, we think that the Beor of the sagas and legends was likely also a three-way mix.

Extending Past the Ferment

Interestingly, we tend to carry the distinctions between beverages into their distillations, as well. Scotch, Whiskey, and Bourbon are all distilled from grains. Brandy is distilled from fruit. I don’t know of any large-scale mead distillation, but the term for its product would be “honeyshine.” Beyond that, unfortunately, my knowledge of distilled products is limited.

A Hole in the Taxonomy

There’s one area that my taxonomy doesn’t cover. What do you call it if the drink is fermented from plant sugars, other than the fruit? For instance, if maple syrup was your primary sugar source? Or (gods forbid) cane sugar? Molasses? Treacle?

I’m tempted to lump these in with meads, mostly as a placeholder for now. (This due to the relative similarity between honey, syrup, and molasses.) I don’t know of anybody fermenting them on a large scale. Moonshiners, perhaps, in the case of cane sugar. Rum is the distillation of fermented cane sugar and/or molasses (and other sugarcane byproducts); following the “beer-whiskey, wine-brandy, mead-honeyshine” pairing above, either rum is a subset of honeyshine, or the fermented plant juices are their own category. If the latter, they’re mostly separate from the “big three.”