It crosses our mind that adding value to the honey our bees (and the additional hives we expect to buy) will produce might be a good idea. In our area there is no shortage of places one can purchase local honey. There may well be room in the market for more; I haven't yet done the research to make an educated decision. But right now we're looking at options, and opening a meadery is one such option.
We called ahead for an appointment because Hornby Island isn't into its summer schedule yet in June, and with two ferries to catch to get there, we didn't want to make the side trip if seeing the meadery wasn't a possibility. We were greeted by this young gentleman, whose name I forgot to get. Bad me.
Their tasting room is charming, and adorned with vast swaths of drying lavender.
The mead display area is simply made to suit the setting.
A large deck off the tasting room offers comfort and a spectacular view.
Our guide willingly showed us around, answered all our questions and encouraged me to take photos. Here he and Jim are discussing the fermentation process.
Then we wandered through their gardens for awhile. These aren't show gardens, but rather bee gardens. The beauty of mead, in my opinion, is that the bees make honey out of your flowers and fruit blossoms, then you can use the fruit itself, added to the honey, to make mead. Seems like a good use of resources to me!
Anyone know what this flower is (below)? See the busy bee? :) (You might need to click on the photo to enlarge it in order to see the bee.)
So the grounds below the meadery/tasting room are filled with ingredients for honey and ingredients for mead.
Here's the view they have to suffer through every day. Ah, bliss...
And, yes, we tucked a few bottles of various flavors into the car for special occasions over the next while. An Olde Mead, Cranberry Lavender Mead, Cyser (apple mead), and Green Tea Elixir.
We have a wonderful meadery a few hours from our house. I enjoy their wines but they are a bit too sweet for my hubby.
ReplyDeletewww.meadery.com
These pictures are beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
Like wines, meads come in various amounts of sweet-vs-dry. I particularly like the non-grape wines (almost an oxymoron!). I mean, you can have grape mead, and also wine made from other fruits. I guess I like variety!
ReplyDeleteThe leaves of the flower look like lavendar, but it's not a variety I've ever seen. I sound like I know what I'm talking about, huh? My mom planted a flower in my garden a few weeks ago, told me what it is, and now I have no idea.
ReplyDeleteYour leaves really do look like lavendar, though.
Interesting idea, EJ. It gives me a start in trying to find out. I hadn't noticed that about the leaves because to me, the flowers don't look lavender so I didn't get as far as the leaves!
ReplyDeleteI believe that's spanish (or french) lavender. You can look it up on wikipedia.org. I don't think it's used for culinary purposes, like common lavender.
ReplyDeleteYay! We have a winner. Spanish lavender it is. I google-imaged it and it definitely looks the same to me. Thanks :)
ReplyDeleteI notice lavender leaves because when it's not flowering I mistake it for rosemary. Botanical genius, yes? ;^)
ReplyDeleteNashoba Winery near us specializes in apple wines, and some of them are truly lovely. Though they do tend to be a bit sweeter than I like.
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