Ok, I want to try mead. Local supermarkets don’t have any, from where can I buy mead online is the next natural question. Maybe after I taste it, I decide to brew it myself.
I was quite surprised to find out that there are people actually writing blogs about all the meads they drink. I had no idea there even existed so many producers in the world. So, was I living under ground, how come I didn’t know about this? Everyone’s enjoying mead, but me. That is quite frustrating!
Look at the list a mead lover posted on his blog. It’s only a fragment of it. Too bad he stopped writing in 2010. He’s been recording his mead experiences, for a two-year period. I believe something serious happened, otherwise, he wouldn’t have ended his passion.
Which is the best mead?
The winner of the golden medal of the 2014 Mazer Cup International Mead Competition, held on March 22 in Boulder, Colorado, in the commercial category, was Wesley Channell’s Dragonmead.
Dragonmead are from Warren, Michigan, and managed to win 5 medals in last year’s competition: 2 golds, 2 silvers, and one bronze. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them on Amazon, or other online shops. You have to go to 14600 E. 11 Mile Rd Warren, MI 48089, to get some.
Other big winners included Michael Fairbrother of Moonlight Meadery (they sell online in the US) and Peter Kudlac of Apimed with 3 medals each.
American Mead Maker Journal Editor, Jeff Herbert and his wife Jen also picked up 3 medals for their Arizona-based Meadery, Superstition Meadery.
Though I think good competitions help us improve and grow, I do believe we have all different tastes, and sometimes our tongue is just more sensitive to new tastes and sensations than the experts’! Even our health and mood are important when we try something new.
There are so many other factors that are involved in defining the final sensation, and I always say that what I like is the best. I think everybody agrees on that.
Conclusion? Try them and decide for ourselves.
BUT
I cannot find it in the supermarkets around me, I don’t have the time or talent to do it myself, where can I find some good mead?
Some producers sell online. They are not many, but they are (the list is down here). And BIG online shops have started to sell them too. For example Amazon. All the bottles you see on the right sight of this article, are to found on Amazon. And there are more, of course.
As for making our own homemade mead, I think this should happen after tasting and liking. Why not brewing it ourselves? If others can do it, so can we. We’ll pick a Mead DIY Kit and some good real honey and let’s get started.
Let’s start with what Amazon can offer us.
- First of all, a beginner’s book can a be a good starting point. Internet info helps, of course, but it is always better to have it on paper so you can underline or check different things. Here is an example:
- Then you can buy a starting kit: Mead Making Kit – Reusable Make Your Own Mead Kit – Yields 1 Gallon of Mead
- Or, if you prefer to try the taste first, then you may start with this one: NV Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery “Pirate’s Blood” Mead 500 mL. It has a scary bottle because the producers probably wanted to give a more genuine Viking feeling of drinking mead from the defeated warriors’ skull. The horns were outdated!
And the list will go on. As a rule, the American producers ship only to selected American States. The UK Amazon, also has mead from the UK producers and sell to UK. Eg:
– Lanchester Mead 70cl
– Norfolk Mead
– Traditional Mead
The diversity is even greater than the one offered by the US.
Producers’ online shops:
– From UK, The Lyme Bay Winery, with a great variety of meads, shipping only to UK. You can try first a traditional mead at a 75cl Bottle, £7.65. This producer has become the bestselling country wine over the last three years, in th UK.
– From Slovakia, Apimed, producing the most famous Medovina Mead, with probably the most awards gathered, ever since 2005. They have two stores APIMED in Trnava and Bratislava. And the most important, they SHIP TO ALL COUNTRIES!
– From UK, The Knight Shop, which SHIPS TO ALL COUNTRIES. Here you can also find amazing beautiful drinking horns or whatever other products you may like from the medieval period: helmets, Viking clothing, daggers, spears, shields, armors, axes, Templar T-shirts, swards, even Knight Gift Packs for your kids. Just take a look!
With what food can we serve mead?
- Mead tastes excellent with the goose or duck liver
- It can be served with the smoked ham
- Lovers of cheese delicacies will enjoy its uniqueness especially with sweeter varieties of cheese. Lyme Bay Winery, from Lyme Regis, UK, known for its award-winning mead, recommend accompanying the flavoursome drink with strong cheeses and serving at room temperature to really appreciate its sweet undertones.
- Suitable with consumption of chocolate, nut or fruit desserts
- It can be successfully used in cocktails or specific mixed drinks. It is appropriate to use it with fruits like grapes, oranges, strawberries, blueberries.
Related articles:
• What is mead wine?
• Types of mead
• Home made recipe for mead
• Go further. Make vinegar out of mead
• This 9000-year-old booze is back on top. Let’s all mead now!
Reference:
http://drinkerofmead.blogspot.ro/;
http://www.trnavskamedovina.sk/en/how-to-serve-it/combination-with-food;
Picture credit:
mead sipping man picture credit Steve Huff under CC via flickr.com