Thousands of gallons of honey-based mead, forerunner of today's beer, are transported each year to the metal coffers of people who look like cast members from "The Private Life of Henry VIII."

The anachronistic image stems from the partnership between Linganore Winecellars in Mount Airy and the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville. It is one of the several partnerships the festival shares with businesses in Maryland, although its relationships with Linganore and another local winery feature the most reciprocity.

"People who never knew mead existed try it at the festival and come here," said Anthony Aellen, president and winemaker at Linganore.

The winery was established by Aellen's father in 1971. The Aellens have been making mead in basements since emigrating from Europe in 1912.

Linganore has provided mead and other wines to the festival for 20 years, including when the festival was still in Columbia. The drink, which was mostly popular in Europe and continues to be so today, usually takes about a year to prepare and, aside from the equipment involved, is made using the same methods as 6,000 years ago, Aellen said.

"The neat thing about it is that is exposes people to a product that is the oldest fermented product known to man," Aellen said. "People taste it and go, ‘Wow, it tastes like honey,' and you go, ‘Well, yeah, that's what it's made from.'"

Linganore Winecellars is the largest vineyard in Maryland, according to the Maryland Winery Association. Linganore planted its first vines in 1972 and has been selling wine since 1977. Aellen said previously that Linganore expects to sell more than 50,000 cases in 2009.

Mead dates to a time when everything was sweetened with honey, as sugar was a luxury until the mid-1800s, when it became the primary sweetener, Aellen said. The drink is also associated with darker legends of the honeymoon, which tell of grooms kidnapping their wives and hiding them for a month, toasting the "marriage" with mead upon eventual return to the family, he said.

"It's neat to re-create an old-time product and watch the reaction on someone's face," Aellen said. "It's also nice to have with ham or salmon — there's so many different things you can do with mead."

He said the partnership with the Renaissance festival complements both businesses, giving the festival a period beverage and Linganore happy customers eager to try it.

"Jules and Justin [Smith] are a charm to work with," Aellen said of the family that owns and operates the festival.

The other winery involved in the festival, Basignani Winery of Sparks, has sold three different wines to the festival for about six years, including chardonnay, Riesling and the blended Marisa.

"It gets our wine exposure. It's fabulous for us," owner Lynne Basignani said of the festival partnership. Basignani approached the festival about selling its wine and has provided about 50 cases to the event each year.

The winery is 23 years old and grows 80 percent of its own grapes.

Basignani said wine works for any type of festival atmosphere, and thinks the local touch lends something special to the Renaissance festival.

"We've had people come to our winery after trying at the festival. We're always happy to have our wine poured anywhere," she said.

Similar business synergy with the festival can also be found among Maryland's location for Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament restaurant, which began in Kissimmee, Fla. Medieval Times hosts meals served in period style and accompanied by medieval tournaments and re-enactments.

Medieval Times' Baltimore Castle at Arundel Mills in Hanover cross-promotes with the festival, offering family-of-four giveaways before each show and handing out festival brochures at both its gift shop and ticket office. In exchange, the Renaissance festival distributes Medieval Times brochures at information desks and invites Medieval Times actors to demonstrate at the festival to generate interest. This year, though, Medieval Times had to cut back on the demonstrations and had just two of its players greet festival-goers because of the recession.

"We've been doing it every year since we opened here in 2004," said RaeAnn Cinquanto, marketing manager for the Baltimore Castle. "People have left the festival and come here in the past."

Cinquanto said Medieval Times has partnerships with surrounding Renaissance festivals in its other locations, but its closeness to Maryland's festival works especially well. People also used to think Medieval Times was part of the Renaissance festival, she said.

"It's guerrilla marketing," she said. "The Maryland Renaissance Festival has been around for a long time and has a big audience."