Close-up of waiter holding bottle and serving red wine during dinner at luxurious gourmet restaurant
Mead has been in vogue for a while, and it’s not surprising why. These tasty honey-based bottles can be enjoyed year-round in various styles and flavours. This fermented beverage is still very popular, but many questions surround it.
Zachary Austin is a buyer at Windmill Wine & Spirits, Saugerties, NY. He dives into Mead’s base material’s complexity and chemical composition: honey. He says that fermentation can reveal and enhance certain qualities of honey due to its inherent complexity in terms of chemical composition. Austin explained that yeasts could produce various materials, including vitamins, amino acids and minerals. during honey fermentation. “As honey meads become more dry, a variety of floral essences may appear, including aromas of citrus, gamey leatherwork, orchard fruits, and herbal notes. This depends on many factors, such as the type of honey used, yeast strains used, and so forth.”
Are you curious about this ancient elixir? To help you get started, we’ve narrowed our top meads. This may be your new favourite beverage, wine and beer fans. These are the top meads you should try now.
Best Overall: Oliver Camelot Mead
Region: Indiana, USA | ABV: 10% | Tasting Notes: Sweet citrus, Orange blossom, White flower petals
This Indiana mead is delicious, affordable, and easy to find. This floral-driven Mead is vibrant and fresh. It’s made from orange-blossom honey. It has notes of honey, sweet citrus, and white flowers petals. Enjoy this refreshing Mead with light cheeses and fresh fruits.
Sky River Dry Mead is the best dry
ABV: 11%
This medium-bodied, bone dry mead is made in Washington. It has honey, sweet stone fruits, nectarine skin, flower petals, white flower petals, and other flavours. Sky River recommends that this nectar be served with Asian-inspired flavours like curry, ginger, sesame, etc. This Mead contains less than 1% residual sugar.
Chaucer’s Mead is the best sweet
ABV: 11%
This sweet honey mead is made with fresh honey. There are no artificial flavours or additives. It’s bursting with honey, canned peaches and acacia. The Mead is similar to fortified wines, but this delicate boozy juice was not made with a neutral distillate. You can either heat it or chill it.
Chaucer’s owner Marty Bargetto notes that the meads are made using honey, water, yeast and traditional methods. “We first dilute our honey with filtered water and then inoculate the diluted honey with a Champagne strain of yeast,” he says, citing that fermentation in temperature-controlled, fining, and filtering (as is common in white wine production) follow. Bargetto says that the entire process from fermentation to bottling takes approximately 60 days.
Redstone Meadery Traditional honey Wine is the best semi-sweet
ABV: 12%
Redstone Meadery’s semisweet Mead comes in its trademark blue bottles. It is the best of both. This delicious Mead is both sweet and dry. It has a citrus rind, honeycomb, fresh-sliced oranges and freshly sliced oranges. This Mead is a perfect match for both spicy and savoury foods, as well as desserts, thanks to its balanced flavour profile.
Moonlight Meadery is the best organic honey recipe
ABV: 12-16% ABV
Moonlight Meadery’s meads are made from Brazilian organic honey. They are all well worth a try. And with half-bottles, it is easy to taste your way through their selection. Blueberries, black cherries, and currants lovers can enjoy a bottle from the meadery’s “Desire” bottling and sip alongside a variety of chocolates. Citrus lovers will love the Moonlight’s “Fling” Cuvee. Wildflower honey produces delicious and fragrant ‘Sensual.
