Gosnells founder Tom Gosnell said the changes would increase innovation and competition.
Monday 31 July 2023
Saturday 22 July 2023
Combgrown and creative: Meadery opens in Auburn, New York
From auburnpub.com
AUBURN — Mead, or honey wine, means high alcohol to most. But the flagship product of the city's first meadery is just 5.5% ABV.
That's just one example of the creative approach to the beverage taken by Elaine Ferrier, owner of Combgrown Mead, which opened Friday in Suite 4 of 26 Osborne St., across from Wegmans.
"What I love about mead is it's such a blank canvas," Ferrier told The Citizen. "There aren't a lot of expectations, so there's a lot of room to be creative and surprise people in good ways."
Combgrown is the second mead business for Ferrier and her husband, Michael Sojka, a family physician at Auburn Community Hospital. Their first began about 10 years ago in southwestern Ontario, Canada, while he was in medical school and she worked in environmental policy for the province's Ministry of Natural Resources.
A homebrewer, Sojka suggested they try fermenting honey to produce mead. Ferrier ran with the idea, he told The Citizen, making a batch in the kitchen of her family farm in Thorndale. There, they opened Tallgrass Mead, named for the area's endangered prairie and savannah ecosystems that are more rare than rainforests, she said.
Elaine Ferrier and her husband, Michael Sojka, at Combgrown Mead in Auburn.
New career opportunities took Ferrier and Sojka to Michigan, where they briefly commuted while continuing to run Tallgrass. When another opportunity presented itself in Auburn, they decided to take the meadery with them, expand it and rename it Combgrown. Ferrier thanked her parents for letting her use their property until the move.
Combgrown Mead in Auburn.
On Osborne Street, Ferrier and Sojka will have 1,000 gallons of capacity to produce meads like Honey Pops, their 5.5% ABV flagship. Such "session meads" were scarce 10 years ago, she said.
"It's not often you want to sit down and have mead. It pairs well with food, but not the way wine does," she said. "So I thought there was an opportunity to create meads that are more sessionable."
Although it has less alcohol than traditional meads, Honey Pops is actually harder to make, Ferrier said. That's partly because of the time it takes to carbonate, a process that also lengthens production of Combgrown's line of mead spritzers. About 8% ABV, they include gamay noir rosé grapes with extracts of rhubarb and strawberry, and chardonnay grapes with extracts of elderflower and lemon.
The tasting area at Combgrown Mead in Auburn.
A bourbon barrel-aged mead should be released next weekend, Ferrier said. Though she would like to distribute Combgrown to stores eventually, for now it will be available in cans to go or in glasses to enjoy in the meadery's tasting room. She looks forward to becoming a stop on tours as part of the busy Finger Lakes craft beverage scene.
"With all its wineries and breweries, it's nice to be able to offer something new," she said. "And Auburn has been so great. People here seem to take it seriously to support local businesses."
Ferrier will make traditional meads eventually, but for now she wants to expand people's definition of the beverage. She's also still finalizing some parts of her production, like carbonation, and experimenting with varietals of New York honey. It's one of the most expensive fermentables, she said, on par with Napa Valley wine grapes. Among her first sources was Kutik's Honey Farm in Oxford.
"It's a really unique type of ingredient," she said. "In my opinion, (mead) is a more sustainable type of craft beverage. As much as I love grape wine, there is a lot of agriculture. You have to clear the land, there's sometimes chemicals used in production and definitely a lot of fossil fuels for the equipment. It's very resource-intensive. Whereas wherever there's wildflowers, bees will make honey."
If you go
WHAT: Combgrown Mead
WHEN: Open 4 to 7 p.m. Thursdays, 4 to 8 p.m. Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays; ribbon-cutting event at 4 p.m. Friday, July 21
WHERE: 26 Osborne St., Suite 4, Auburn
INFO: Visit combgrown.square.site or facebook.com/combgrownmead, or email combgrown@gmail.com
Wednesday 5 July 2023
Australia: Sweet news! The first mead cellar door has opened in the Hunter Valley
From delicious.com.au
Honey, I’m home.
Mead is believed to be the oldest fermented drink known to humankind, with the honey wine predating regular wine and beer by thousands of years. The ancient Vikings loved the stuff; the drink was deeply integrated into their religious beliefs and ceremonies. (Fun fact: the word ‘honeymoon’ comes from this period. Newlywed Viking couples would drink mead every day of the first moon cycle after their wedding, for luck and fertility.)
In recent years, mead has seen something of a resurgence, and now NSW’s Hunter Valley has become home to the region’s first mead cellar door. Honey Wines Australia, in the scenic region of Broke, has been operating as an online mead and honey business for the past three years. Now it has opened up a new store to welcome visitors into the world of mead and honey.
There are nine unique meads on offer – from traditional meads with smooth, golden notes to more innovative creations infused with fruits and spices. There’s also a range of other honey products, including creamed honey, vanilla honey and even chocolate honey. Plus, they sell Viking drinking horns, which is cool.
You can even learn all about the process of mead-making through mead and honey tastings led by Martin Jackson, Honey Wines’ owner, beekeeper and mead-maker, who is eager to share his expertise.
You can find Honey Wines Australia at 72 Wollombi Street, Broke NSW. Be sure to pick up a Viking drinking horn while you’re there.
Sunday 2 July 2023
Honeytree Meadery, Nashville, Tennessee
From atlasobscura.com
Sip mead from an East Nashville apiary while snacking on barbacoa tacos
TENNESSEE MAY BE LARGELY WHISKEY territory, but in recent years, a small number of local producers have been concentrating on a far more ancient elixir: mead. In 2019, Ross Welbon, a beer brewer and beekeeper, and Dru Sousan, a bartender with a long history in the local restaurant scene, opened up Nashville’s first meadery.
All of the meads here come from Honeytree Meadery’s own apiary, which is spread across two locations holding more than 30 bee colonies. Each glass contains notes of the honey used to produce it—from a milder wildflower to fragrant orange blossom—while some contain custom infusions of aromatics such as fresh ginger or pineapple and sage. Welbon, ever the IPA-enthusiast, adds his own flair with a dry-hopped variation.
As a bonus, the meadery has one of the best backyard patios in town, complete with a roaring fire and beeswax artworks by Randy Purcell. It’s the perfect spot to kick back with an order of tacos from Alebrije, the truck perpetually parked outside. Named for a Mexican cryptid, the business is the creation of chef Edgar Victoria, who hails from Mexico City. Victoria sources masa from small-scale producers for his tlayudas, huaraches, and tortillas. Check their Instagram to keep an eye out for specials, like tamales made with blue conico corn masa.
On Thursday evenings, the back patio hosts live musical performances.
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