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Mead is an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water. As well as plain ordinary mead, there are many variations. Melomel is fermented from honey and fruit juice; cyser is apple melomel and pyment is grape melomel. Metheglin is plain mead flavoured with spices or herbs; hippocras is spice or herb flavoured pyment. Meads vary in strength from about 10 per cent alcohol by volume to about 18 per cent.

I'm not by any means an expert on mead, but I have made quite a lot of it over the years, and to my astonishment every single batch has been successful. The methods and recipes below are quite simple and straightforward - they've worked for me and if you try them I hope they'll work for you.

The following is not intended as a complete introduction to mead making; it is aimed at those who are familiar with wine making procedures.
There are two essentially different methods for mead, and there is much argument about them. I've used both, and found them both satisfactory, but method 2 probably gives a finer result.
The best yeast to use is wine (not beer) yeast.

Method 1:
Dissolve the honey in warm water. (If you apply heat whilst adding the honey then stir vigorously or you'll get a solid mess in the bottom of the pan!) Bring carefully to the boil (if heated too quickly, it'll suddenly froth up and over). Simmer for a few minutes to sterilize. Skim off the scum. Allow to cool until only warm. Add the other ingredients, except the yeast compound, dissolving the soluble ones, and add water to make one UK gallon (see Weights and measures, below). Finally, add the yeast compound. Ferment at a warm room temperature or warmer (68 to 80 deg. Fahrenheit, 20 to 27 deg. Celsius). Ideally, the temperature should be higher at first, lower once fermentation is well under way, then higher again towards the end of fermentation.
When fermentation has stopped (perhaps 5 to 8 weeks) move to a cool place. Rack after a week to 10 days, adding one Campden tablet. Top up with mead, wine or water. Rack again a month later. Top up as before. Leave for as long as you can bear, racking again if more sediment settles, then bottle in wine bottles.

Method 2:
Dissolve the honey in warm water as above. Add the other ingredients, except the yeast compound, dissolving the soluble ones. Add water to make one UK gallon (see Weights and measures, below). Add two Campden tablets to sterilize. Leave for twenty-four hours. Add the yeast compound, then proceed as for method 1.

With the cyser and the melomels (except the orange melomel) you may only need to rack once.

1 UK gallon = 1.201 US gallons = 4.546 litres
1 UK pint = 1.201 US pints = 568 ml = 0.568 litre
1 pound (1 lb) = 16 ounces = 454 grams = 0.454 kilograms
1 ounce = 28 grams
1 litre = 1000 millilitres (1000 ml) = 1.76 UK pints = 2.113 US pints
1 teaspoon (1 tsp) is one level (not heaped) teaspoon
1 teaspoon (1 tsp) = (nominally) 5 millilitres = (nominally) 5 grams
(Note for purists: 1 UK teaspoon = 3.624 ml, 1 US teaspoon = 4.833 ml, 1 medicine teaspoon = 5 ml.)

Blackcurrant melomel

Cyser

Grapefruit melomel

Hippocras

Mead

Metheglin

Orange melomel

Pyment

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