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SUMMER MEAD SANGRIA

All the best of summer is blended together in this delicious drink recipe, fresh fruit, fireweed honey, and Solstice Metheglin mead.  Enjoy this with friends on your patio this summer!

A modern take on man’s oldest fermented beverage.  Cyser is Mead made with apples or Cider made with honey.  Sometimes the honey is fermented with the apple juice and other times a Cider is made and is back sweetened with honey.  Both beverages are referred to as Cyser but the taste of each is quite different.  When the honey is fermented in it shows more in a soft, perfumed finish that turns brandy like with ageing.  A back sweetened Cyser has more honey taste up front and a shorter, simpler finish. 

WHAT IS METHEGLIN MEAD

From healing wine to the promoter of Vigor for Julius Cesar.  Metheglin Mead has an interesting story that leads down through history to todays delicious fermented delight.

 

Nordic history is resplendent with stories about the origin of mead and how their gods came to enjoy it. Long considered an elixir of love, courage and strength the Nordic Sagas of old tell tales of how gods and mortals alike used it to their advantage.  Stories tell of gods giving goddesses cups of mead in hopes of warming their hearts and their bodies to their advances of love.

Melomels can be sweet like a dessert wine or dry like a table wine.  They do not taste the same as wine as the base is fermented honey, not grapes.  They are very smooth in your mouth and leave a pleasant finish that is unique to the fruit and type of honey used.  

by Pirjo Raits, Sooke News Mirror – May 25, 2010 VITAL FOOD LINK DISAPPEARING The sweet, sticky amber liquid that has been called the nectar of ...

Did you know that each vintage of honey is unique?  Every year the bees can forage in exactly the same area and yet, depending on what the weather does, they will forage more or less on certain flowers.  The outcome of this determines the taste of the nectar that is ultimately turned into honey by the bees.  As a mead maker I find this fascinating.  

Before you mow your dandelions, consider how food options for pollinators are scarce in early spring.  Before May, when other flowers bloom, those sunny little flowers are a very important source of pollen for bees. Dandelion pollen is nutritious and the nectar is abundant - it gives bees a huge boost and adds to the health and wellbeing of the hive. read more

Éconmusée promotes artisans at work by  Pirjo Raits - Sooke News Mirror Scattered throughout Quebec are artisans who manage to maintain the tradi...

Victoria businesses join global climate strike, some close shop Andrew Duffy / Times Colonist As many as 50 Greater Victoria businesses have signe...

Featured Winery by Robert Bell, WinesofCanada.com One of the best places for producing Mead is Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery in Sooke* Brit...

The Mystery of the Missing Bees by Susan Hauser, Northwest Palate – September/ October 2008 B.C. Beekeeper Optimistic Despite Losses Bob Liptrot’s...