Sundays are the day we set aside for the big meadery projects. Since we both still work full-time off the farm, plus work on the farm, there’s never enough time. Big projects just don’t happen unless we build it into our schedule, so Sundays are mead days. We usually head down to the meadery around mid-morning. Walking into the intoxicatingly scented building, breathing deeply and turning on the lights and radio I feel a sense of pure joy and excitement settle over me. It’s the feeling you get when you are doing what you love.

This Sunday we did our usual meadery work and then moved the batch of fig and saffron mead from the primary fermenting tank. It’s a heady concoction with a richness of fig, full-bodied, and just a hint of the earthy notes from saffron. It’s truly a thing of beauty. We did a fair amount of taste testing, for quality control purposes of course.

What’s Mead?

  • Hubs is setting up the transfer pump.

One of the things I get asked most about owning a meadery is, ‘What is mead?”. So I thought I’d give a little explanation to help clear things up. Mead is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages made. Everyone seems to associate mead with Vikings, but there are pottery vessels dating back to 7000 BCE that are believed to have held a honey, rice fermentation mix. If you research you’ll find that many cultures created some type of mead.

Ok, so what the heck is it? Wine is traditionally made with grapes (but in truth can be made with almost any fruit). The natural sugars in the fruit are consumed by yeast, causing fermentation and the resulting alcohol. With mead, honey is the primary sugar that the yeast consumes. The mead can be strictly honey, water, and yeast mix (traditional), it can have added fruits (melomels), it can have added herbs or spices (metheglins), it can be made with grains (braggots), it can be sweet, dry, sparkling or still. The possibilities are endless.

All my Favorite Things

Making mead lets me bring all of my favorite things together. I can be as creative as I want to, with an endless possibility of flavor combinations. We basically have a mini-laboratory just to create yummy drinks. When you add in the exploring of fascinating mead stories throughout history, well, I’m just giddy. It’s really no wonder that my Sundays in the meadery are truly me(ad) days. I’m blessed far greater than I deserve. <3