Paintings at Catal Huyuk in Anatolia dating from abound 7000 BC have been interpreted to depict honeycombs and bees foraging on flowers.
Among the ancients, a beverage prepared with honey, such as that known as mead, and as metheglin, in England, was a luxurious drink.
It was a custom drink of diluted honey for thirty days or a moon’s age, after wedding feast and hence arose the term honey-moon.
Indigenous people throughout North, Meso and South America gathered wild honey to use as a sweetener and Maya have a distinction of being the first beekeepers in the Americas.
During 1520s the drink called chocolatl, Mayan beverage was introduced into Spain. Chocolatl is a drink made by roasting and grinding cocoa nibs, mashing with water and often adding with other ingredients such as honey.
It was reserved for consumption by the highest social classes and only in seventeenth century that the consumption of chocolate spread through Europe.
Honey sweetened beverages were popular in eighteenth century Russia, Sheeten, a hot drink of watered, spiced honey revived energy on cold winter nights. Sbitien, a hot spiced honey beverage that remained popular for two centuries, was the center of flourishing kitchen businesses.
History of honey drink