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Mead.page
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---
description: Alcohol ratings
tags: personal
created: 02 May 2012
status: finished
belief: log
...
I rarely drink alcoholic beverages. Alcohol makes me sad and depressed, so any alcoholic beverage I drink despite the alcohol, and not because of. (The good thing about this is that I never need to worry about alcoholism, since in no situation would I want to be *more* sad and depressed.) As well, alcohol is expensive. It's no surprise that I drink so much more [tea](Tea) - on a per-cup basis, it must be an order of magnitude or two cheaper! And teas are usually more tasty too.
As a kid, during some crab-eating, my grandfather gave me Budweiser beer; I found it unspeakably awful. I still do, and only now grudgingly tolerate artisanal beer. Whiskey tastes like oven cleaner. White wines are inoffensive (and hence not worth drinking), while red wines often have an interesting flavor but with punishing bitterness. Brandy is best used as flavoring in eggnog or hot chocolate. I have no opinion on vodka, and [Jägermeister](!Wikipedia) is just odd. [Irish cream](!Wikipedia) was too candy-like. I rather enjoyed the 2 [ice wine](!Wikipedia)s I've had, but it's rare and expensive.
Finally, I tried some [mead](!Wikipedia), and that seems to be the stuff for me! It has a fringe-y reputation thanks to Renaissance Fair-types^[They're generally nice harmless folks, and I enjoy some anachronisms myself like martial arts; I'm just pointing out that "mead" is something of a punchline or joke.], but mead tastes good regardless. The local liquor store had a blackcurrant mead, which was disgusting, an Irish regular mead which was good, and a regular American mead, which was a little lower in quality but still good.
Mead is not common, though, and being alcoholic and subject to countless burdensome regulations, mead is also pretty hard to get. I spent many hours searching for mead sources, and the upshot was that essentially no mead seller ships to New York State. This meant that the ~30 interesting-looking meads on [Vinoshipper.com](http://www.vinoshipper.com) were useless to me. I thought of sending them to my grandparents in Maryland since I occasionally visit, but of the 30, only 2 varieties ship to Maryland! S&H doubled the price since they would ship separately! Well, that's no good. I had heard of a local mead maker, the [LI Meadery](http://www.limeadery.com/), so I turned eagerly to their website and learned... they closed a few months before after something like a decade of business. Gosh darn it! This left me one last source: [Earle Estates Meadery](http://www.meadery.com/). So I ordered 10 meads and a wine from them for a total of $196.
# Mead
## Earle Estates Meadery
My first batch:
- Traditional honey mead (★★★★☆)
> '01 Commercial Mead Champion, 5.0% RS. Similar to a Late Harvest Riesling. Pairs nicely with chicken, fish, pork, Chinese, lasagna, pasta, corn.
Strong mead smell with sharp aftertaste. Not that I'm complaining, I like the overall mead flavor. Tasty.
- Cherry charisma (★☆☆☆☆)
> Gold Medal, 5.0% RS. 30% Cherry Wine, 70% Mead. Great with chocolate, lasagna.
Light cherry flavor, not too sweet - flavor is identical to how it smells. (I don't know why that struck me, but it did.) Persistent aftertaste. On further drinking, I've begun to reconsider my impression: it is too sweet when you are drinking more than a sip, and the cherry starts to taste more artificial and less like a real cherry.
- Strawberry shadows (★★★★★)
> DOUBLE GOLD MEDAL, 6.0%RS. 30% Strawberry Wine, 70% Mead. Good with sharp cheese or for dessert itself. Pairs with fruit and whipped cream.
Immediate kick of alcohol, gentle strawberry taste - sort of creamy? No aftertaste. Tasty!
- Blackberry blush (★★★☆☆)
> 6.0%RS. 30% Blackberry Wine 70% Mead.
Blackberry flavor is not very distinct. Sort of a generic fruity mead flavor, with little aftertaste.
- Honey mead semi-sweet (★★★☆☆)
> Silver Medal, 8.0% RS. Light honey wine. Pairs well with fruit, cream and peanut butter desserts.
The Contemporary has a lighter flavor than the Traditional, dryer & not as sweet. Lesser aftertaste. Overall, there's much less of an overpowering "mead" flavor to it which makes it taste more like a white wine. One might describe it as a "tamed" mead.
- Blueberry bounty (★★★★★)
> Gold Medal, 7.0% RS. 45% Blueberry Wine, 55% Honey Mead. Great with prime rib, any beef dish, dessert, or on its own.
Similar to the blueberry wine, but both sweeter & sharper. The mead, no doubt. Tasty.
- Black jewel (★★★★☆)
> Gold Medal, 8.0%RS. Blend Of 30% Black Raspberry Wine & 70% Honey Wine.
Sweet, with no real alcohol burn. Tastes like blackberry much more than raspberry, lingering aftertaste & smell. Tasty.
- Twinkle mead (★★☆☆☆)
> 100% HONEY WINE, OUR FIRST SPARKLING MEAD, Very light delicate carbonation. A true delight!!
Didn't try this one in the initial tasting - I decided to save it for some occasion since carbonated beverages don't keep well after opening. Months later, I try it (after accumulating some spare corks I could whittle down to fit) to personally celebrate an accomplishment, since I had run out of the other 2 bottles I had with me. It's... OK. I would not say great. It strongly resembles the Contemporary mead, but the flavor seems worsened by the carbonation - and it is, if anything, too sweet.
- Pear mead (★★★☆☆)
> Double Gold, Best of Class, Best New York State Specialty Wine at 2011 New York State Wine & Food Classic., 5.0% RS. Chairman's Choice 2006 - CA, 2004 NYS Best Mead. 70% Pear Wine, 30% Mead. Pairs well with pork, chicken, cheeses, fresh fruit.
Sweet & sour simultaneously with an overall sharp pear taste. (I mean "sharp" in the same way foxy-tasting grapes are sharper than regular grapes.) Definite aftertaste. Not sure if I like it.
- Creamy apricot (★★★★☆)
> '01 Commercial Mead Champion, 5.0% RS. Similar to a Late Harvest Riesling. Pairs nicely with chicken, fish, pork, Chinese, lasagna, pasta, corn.
Relatively dry with a light flavor and light aftertaste. The apricot flavor is dominated by mead. Overall, I was reminded of white wines.
For Christmas 2013, I was gifted another batch (3 new ones: Raspberry, Cranberry, Starlight; 3 old: Strawberry, Black Jewel, Contemporary):
- Raspberry Reflection (★★★★☆)
> RS 6%- 30% Red Raspberry Wine, 70% Mead. Absolutely Delicious! Gold Medal 2013 Pacific Rim Wine Competition
It *smells* sickly sweet, but the flavor is tart (much like fresh-picked raspberries themselves can be), and overall quite tasty.
- Cruisin' Cranberry (★★☆☆☆)
> Gold Medal, '02 NYS Best specialty Wine. 7.0% RS. Cranberry/Honey wine blend. Great with turkey & chicken.
I'm not a big fan of cranberries, but I hoped that I would be surprised. The flavor was weaker than ordinary cranberry juice, and there were no twists or improvements.
- Starlight Blush (★★★☆☆)
> Silver Medal, 4.0% RS. Similar to "Zin", but fuller bodied. Pairs with cheese or noodle bakes, chili, meatballs, mushrooms.
Oddly enough, neither the Earle website nor the bottle describe what Starlight Blush actually *is*. (Nor am I able to find out what "Zin" is - it doesn't seem to appear on the website even checking back to 2006 in the Internet Archive.)
Drinking it sheds little light. It's clearly berry-based and has a bite almost like carbonation, but the flavor doesn't immediately jump out as a particular berry. A blend? A combination of blueberry and raspberry might taste like this. (It's sweeter than the Raspberry Reflection, so I suspect there's no raspberry wine in it.) Not bad but puzzling.
## Oliver Winery
- [Camelot Mead Honey Wine](http://www.oliverwinery.com/index.cfm?method=storeproducts.showdrilldown&productid=565D8BC6-1CC4-FBB6-23C6-013703DB5D6A) (★★★☆☆)
This mead came as a gift from my aunt. I was quite surprised to taste it, as it did not resemble either of the Earle Estates straight meads (Traditional or Contemporary). The immediate flavor is a pure honey flavor, pretty sweet, minimal bite, and with little else until an alcoholic aftertaste (it's 10% alcohol) shows up. On the fermentation spectrum, I assume these aren't allowed to go too long. I wasn't sure whether I liked it, but the flavor grew on me (even if I still think that the 2 Earles were more interesting on their own).
# Fruit
## Earle Estates Meadery
- Blueberry wine (★★★★★)
> Gold Medal, 7.0%RS. Made from 100% NYS Blueberries! Great with beef dishes, especially with a tomato sauce, cheesecake.
Not actually a mead, but it looked tasty so I ordered it, and I have no "Wine" page, so I cover it here. This blueberry wine turns out to taste exactly how one would expect 'blueberry wine' to taste. The flavor isn't overpowering, and it has a contrasting sharp aftertaste. Tasty.
# Dessert wines
## Jackson-Triggs
- [Vidal Icewine](http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-123435-0001-jackson-triggs-vidal-icewine-niagara-peninsula-canada) (★★★☆☆)
[Ice wine](!Wikipedia) is very expensive on a unit-basis; this 2008 bottle would cost ~$27 for 187ml, so in comparison to a more normal 750ml bottle, it's somewhere around 4x expensive. Which on the signaling theory of gifts, makes it an excellent gift since anyone who has looked at the price will know that a fair bit of money was spent on it. But it also means I rarely get to try any since I can't justify spending that much on ice-wine when I could buy 4x mead with that money, or buy several times *that* in tea.
(Looking at a [price history of Vidal Icewine](http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-123435-0001-jackson-triggs-vidal-icewine-niagara-peninsula-canada), I was surprised to see that the price doubled in 2009, which apparently was a [good year in general](http://www.vqaontario.com/Wines/VintageReports#sub-2009) for Ontario wines but a terrible one for ice-wine with that harvest a quarter the 2008 size - so perhaps one could say that ice-wine is a liquid [countercyclical asset](!Wikipedia "Procyclical and countercyclical#Countercyclical"), which ought to be in high demand by any wine hedge fund!)
The manufacturing of ice-wine is pretty romantic, and it seems to deliver: this was very sweet, too sweet for most of the people who tried it. One sips it very slowly. Besides the intense sweetness, there is a sort of fruity (not grape-y) aroma I don't generally associate with white wines which is interesting.
 / 