Madi Gervais & CoHosts
76 episodes listed below
Hot history, fast banter, real research.
Spill the Mead treats history like the best kind of gossip: researched, animated, and full of side-eye. Recent episodes swing from Anne Boleyn and early Quakers to Bronte heartbreak, medieval knight matchups, English monarch games, and horror-movie chatter.
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Spill the Mead turns the past into a rapid, conversational spectacle. It is not quiet history. It is history with laughter in the margins, sudden seriousness, and a taste for the details that make old conflicts feel startlingly alive. Recent episodes show its range clearly. Tudor material remains a major gravitational pull, especially Anne Boleyn, Katherine, Thomas, Chapuys, Hever Castle, and the long argument over reputation, evidence, and court politics. The show also stretches into religious history, using early Quaker belief and George Fox to trace how Tudor-period tensions kept echoing into the mid-17th century. That scholarly thread comes wrapped in jokes, reactions, and pop-cultural comparison. Other installments make the format more openly playful. Medieval warriors are placed into a hypothetical tournament. English monarchs get sorted through a loose challenge built on surprise, instinct, and argument. The Bronte siblings arrive as gothic, windswept, heartbreaking material. The VVitch opens a movies-and-culture lane where history-adjacent taste, horror, and personal viewing gaps become part of the fun. The show works because it rarely treats knowledge as a museum label. Facts arrive inside banter, disagreement, surprise, and emotional over-identification. Guest-led episodes can become especially detail-rich, while recurring speaker pairings keep the room warm and informal. The result is a history podcast for people who want texture rather than polish. It makes room for Tudor obsessives, medieval daydreamers, literary mourners, horror fans, and anyone who likes a researched story better when someone at the table is visibly thrilled by it.
Made for: Best for listeners who like European history, Tudor drama, medieval hypotheticals, gothic literature, and pop-culture side quests served in a loose conversational style. It especially fits people who prefer lively reactions over classroom pacing.
What sets it apart: Spill the Mead treats historical detail as social fuel, mixing research with games, guest expertise, emotional riffs, and recurring themed segments. Its strongest hook is the collision of serious curiosity with gleefully informal delivery.
Historical Gossip: the retelling of historical events, but only the juicy bits.Madi and her Batch of Bards research people, places, things, and events from all around the world, and take turns telling each other (and YOU!) all of the fun, juicy details of history. Basically, we sift through all the boring stuff, so you don't have to, and hit you with the hottest tea in history. Just some good 'ol, well-researched, historical story telling; that's Spill the Mead.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Its conversational retellings connect legends, source questions, and political violence without sanding away the odd details that make each subject memorable.
Spill the Mead turns historical retelling into lively table talk, with Maddie and her rotating collaborators interrupting the narrative to question motives, register disbelief, and chase revealing details.
An archery contest where both archers are the targets: suddenly your trivia night feels tame.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A brisk Quaker history chat that links George Fox to Tudor-era religious change.
Spill of the Mead uses its Uncorked segment to trace the early Quakers with Dr. Erica Canela, opening with George Fox and 1652 and then moving into the movement's rejection of formal clergy and insistence on a direct connection to God.
A lively Tudor conversation that stays anchored to the Chapuys letter and its yellow-clothing detail.
This episode opens with Dr. Owen Emerson and quickly settles into Tudor debate, moving from Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon to the way their relationship has been treated over time.
An underdog archery challenge turns into a sharp, funny history story with teeth.
Spill the Mead ends 2025 with an archery contest that hangs on Yang Yuji, an unknown challenger, and Dou Yu, the prime minister who sparked the rebellion and is known as a master archer.
A Grimm tale returns with blunt banter, a missed-schedule apology, and a daughter wary of her wealthy suitor.
Spill the Mead settles into folktales with a rough, direct energy, and the hosts begin by noting they missed the schedule before leaning into a spooky November mood.
A lively look at how Dracula grew from folklore, illness, class metaphor, and Bram Stoker's theatrical instincts.
The episode reads the vampire less as a monster in isolation than as a figure built from fear, illness, class anxiety, and performance. It traces the creature through tuberculosis and syphilis, then sharpens the idea of the aristocrat as a parasite feeding on the working class.
Vlad the Impaler becomes a sharp lesson in how public fear was staged to enforce obedience.
Maddie and Coco frame Vlad the Impaler as a study in punishment performed in public, with deaths, spikes, and cages used to make fear do the work of order. Their loose, energetic banter keeps the argument clear, even when the violence turns harsh.
British history through power, women, and memory.
History as context, consequence, and conversation.
Berlin history, fast banter, sharp human detail.
Tudor legends tested against the record.
Spill the Mead's Uncorked segment brings in Dr.
This episode imagines drafting historical figures into the NFL, blending sports analysis with historical entertainment.
This episode features a casual conversation between Maddie and Gabby reviewing and discussing the horror film 'The VVitch' as part of their new 'Movies and Mead' segment.
This episode of Spill the Mead is a Brontë Book Club discussion focusing on the gothic, windswept, and heartbreaking aspects of the Brontë siblings' literature.
This episode continues the historical gossip story of Willam Marsh vs.
This episode kicks off a new series comparing legendary medieval knights William Marshal and Boucicaut in a hypothetical tournament, featuring expert analysis from Taylor Jones.
Uncorked opens with a loud hello.
The hosts announce a finale episode challenge where they describe the first 22 English monarchs with one-word descriptions and spontaneous elaborations.
Maddie and Taylor open on Sagittarius season and head straight into an archery story.
Spill the Mead opens by warning that the episode covers adult topics and uses adult language, then leans right into spooky November energy.
Bram Stoker crossed out "Count Vampire" and replaced it with "Count Dracula" after reading a Romanian travel guide.
Maddie and Coco open with a spooky tone and then move straight into Vlad the Impaler.
This episode of Spill the Mead introduces an upcoming holiday related to Robert Burns, exploring its origins and how to celebrate it.
This episode tells the historical story of a naval confrontation during the French Revolution era, specifically involving 14 warships versus cavalry at Den Helder.