Why is the mead always gone?

Because the giants use it to wash their mammoths.

I heard the guards use the new members of the companions to fetch it, then either sell it on the black market or drink it themselves. Just rumours though.

This is the sort of thing we should say by the fireside in the winter-time, as we lie on soft couches after a good meal, drinking sweet wine and crunching chickpeas: "Of what country are you, and how old are you, good sir? And how old were you when the Mede appeared?" -- Herodotus