Saturday, January 27, 2007

Mead, Cyser & More

With the winery closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the winter, we're able to take a few field trips. And no one has to stay at home to "watch the store."

We took our first field trip this past Wednesday to Munro Honey & Meadery in Alvinston, Ontario (about 30 miles east of Sarnia). Mead is made by fermenting honey to produce a wine-like beverage.

They've been in business for about 90 years, but mostly selling honey. The meadery only began about 6 or 7 years ago.

Holly has made a few small batches of cyser (apple & honey wine) and perry (pear & honey wine), but had lots of questions for John, the commercial mead-maker who took us on a tour of the facilities. She was interested in how long he ages his meads, what type of yeast he uses, that sort of thing. He was extremely generous with his time and information.

Their facility was very quiet, as you would expect in the depths of winter. However, one of the nicest advantages of working with honey is that it doesn't spoil. So you can store it and begin the mead-making process at any time of the year. A refreshing thought after the craziness of the harvest season!

The Munro Meadery makes a range of meads including dry, semi-sweet, and some fruit meads (also know as melomels). We brought several meads and a raspberry melomel home with us -- we seem to naturally gravitate to raspberry, don't we?

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