From herald-zeitung.com
In a German city of beer, Valkyrie’s Kiss is the first meadery.
Mead is an alcoholic beverage that, while having a similar production process as wine, is actually a drink in its own category separate from beer and wine. Instead of grapes, honey is used in addition to water and yeast to create mead. The drink is the oldest recorded alcoholic beverage in human history, predating wine by at least 3,000 years.
When Comal County native Isaac Pruna finished serving in the Army, his plan was to open a brewery and wedding venue. Soon, he realized that the beer and wine market was starting to fall, and when researching wedding venues, he learned that the term “honeymoon” came from mead.
Then, Pruna started to get more interested in the drink.
“Some of my buddies, too, were making [mead] at their house, and I was like, ‘What is this?’” Pruna said. “Then I went to a couple of Renaissance festivals, and I started drinking a lot more of it … and I wondered if I could make something out of it.”
Pruna started digging deeper into the world of mead and found a mentor: Micah Erwin of Elgin Meadery. Pruna and his team learned more about making mead and purchased some of the recipes from Erwin before he retired.
“My brewers and I, we had never done commercial mead making, so [Erwin] definitely helped,” Pruna said.
In Norse mythology, valkyries are female figures who guide souls of fallen warriors to Valhalla, Odin’s majestic hall, similar to heaven in Christianity. The meadery’s name is inspired by this tale and Pruna’s military background.
“I had a bunch of other names and I narrowed it down to this partly because of my brothers in arms,” Pruna said. “I served 10 years in the Army and I lost some buddies, so it was just kind of an homage to them, hoping that they were able to get kissed by the valkyrie and get to go to where it is that they wanted to go, whether it be heaven or Valhalla.”
Valkyrie’s Kiss offers several varieties of mead, including a traditional dry, cherry, lemon, a sweet traditional and other seasonal and premium flavours. Some of the flavouring ingredients, specifically elderberry and hibiscus, are purchased from the New Braunfels Farmers Market. The rest of the fruits needed for flavouring are purchased elsewhere but are still fresh, and Pruna says he is looking for local farmers that can supply the quantity needed for production.
The mead is bottled and corked by hand after being fermented and aged in-house. All of the honey used comes either from Youngblood Honey in Pearsall or Holdman Honey in Seguin. Each batch of mead requires four 55-gallon barrels of honey.
The mead is available for purchase at the New Braunfels and Boerne farmers markets as well as the farmers market at The Pearl in San Antonio — or customers can make reservations to come to the meadery and do tastings on Fridays and Sundays. Charcuterie boards arranged by Otto’s Cheese Shop are also available at tastings.
Several local restaurants and bars carry Valkyrie’s Kiss, including Moonshine & Ale and Loki’s Axe Haus, as well as a few places in Austin and Houston. If none of these options are available, Pruna says customers can also contact him to arrange local pickup.
Valkyrie’s Kiss is located at 6500 State Highway 46 West in New Braunfels. The phone number is 830-481-2101, and they can be found online at valkyrieskissmead.com.
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