Egg Harbor, Wisconsin
Crusin' Rating: B
Booze Rating: B
This week, we are featuring a short, but sweet (pun intended) review of a Meadery that’s partnered with a distillery as part of our Door County Series. Mixed Meadia Meadery has partnered with Hatch Distilling Co. (review coming next week!) and is Door County’s first, and to our knowledge, only meadery.
While Mixed Meadia Meadery sells its products at Hatch Distilling Co. and you are able to do tastings at the distillery - they don’t have a fully dedicated space to themselves just yet. For this review, we were lucky enough to stumble in to a pop-up tasting provided by the owners of Mixed Meadia. It was a full house, with the Artist, The Buffalo Prince, and the Thirsty Troll all making an appearance at this review.
Since this was a pop-up, it was quite literally hosted in the back room of Hatch Distilling Co. that serves as storage for their various barrels. We won’t focus too much on the space because of that. There were some high top tables - really maybe a footwide by four feet long - that gave me little room to write as everyone gave impressions on the mead. To say Hatch Distilling Co. was busy was a bit of an understatement, more like packed, and that included the back room. When we arrived the distillery was already abuzz with activity with nowhere to sit. As we looked for seating we stumbled into the backroom and saw mead samples being poured and thus, the review began!
Right off the bat we learned that Mixed Meadia produces its own honey right in Door County and what they themselves don’t grow is sourced from around Door County - what can’t be sourced right in the county is sourced from around Wisconsin. Nothing comes from outside Wisconsin and if you know us, you know that’s something that we fully support here at Crusin’ for Booze. We know that’s not always a feasible goal, but it’s always awesome to see a producer pull it off! While we (foolishly) did not catch the name of the owner and partner that were pouring, we can say that they were both very knowledgeable, answering basic and niche questions with ease and the enthusiasm they have for Wisconsin agriculture, and more specifically, Door County agriculture is absolutely infectious.
In this instance at the pop-up, the samples were free, but we opted to snag a flight of mead from the Distillery bar so as to not cause further traffic jams in the limited space of the back room.
Flowering Inferno (No ABV provided) - This Mead uses Wisconsin wildflower honey and jalapeno. Pouring light gold and smelling strongly of freshly-picked jalapenos exclusively, this mead was quite sweet - relatively speaking - with a little hint of vegetal jalapeno flesh but there wasn’t really any heat to speak of. We were all in concurrence, especially Hannah - in wishing there was more heat to this particular offering.
The Fox (9.5% ABV) - Lager gold in color, this Mead featured apple and pear that I picked out, the Artist noted floral on the nose, and the Thirsty Troll mentioned it smelled similar to white wine than mead. With a little acidity coming into play when tasting along with green apple and some juicy pears, the table consensus is that this was a bright, yummy mead.
Door County Cherry Mead (5.5% ABV) - When in Rome, right? This Rosé pink mead smelled of faint cherry blossoms and tasted of wildflower honey, minerality, and a little bit of bright cherry. We ordered this one solely for the novelty.
Dandelion Mead (12% ABV) - If you read our review on Northern Waters Distillery, you know that I’m a bit of a sucker for trying booze with Dandelion - so this was an absolute must on the tasting list. Smelling so strongly of yellow Dandelion blossoms covered in powdered sugar you’d almost think you were just off the yellow brick road on your way to the Emerald City. With a grassy, summer pollen, and distinctly dandelion sweetness this mead tasted like sweet hay fever. The Thirsty Troll and I loved this one while Hannah wanted nothing to do with it -stating it tasted far too grassy.
Viking’s Blood & Honey (12% ABV) - This ruby red, cherry mead features spruce tips and caraway. The Buffalo Prince stated that:
“Artist, this smells like a Christmas candle you lit and it’s not even spooky [season] yet.”
For my money, I did think it smelled of rye bread and spruce tips, which does sort of evoke baking with a Christmas tree standing in the living room. I tasted cranberry and some piney notes and rye bread which I thought didn’t quite work. The tartness and caraway for me gave an impression that didn’t taste like pickles but did sort of remind me of that realm of acidity and spices which isn’t quite what I was looking for in a mead.
In a happy accident of the Artist bringing the Buffalo Prince the wrong sample, we found one of our favorites:
Lemon Mead (12% ABV) - While never being the biggest fan of Limoncello, I found this lightly gold mead to have an excellent balance of sweet and tart. Full of lemon pith on the nose and striking a balance between sour and a little bit of earthy sweetness, this mead was fantastic and I could easily see sipping this on its own over ice on a hot day.
We left with a bottle of Lemon Mead, Black Currant Mead, and Brut Mead with as many leaving with the Artist and the Buffalo Prince. While I wanted to do some comparisons between cider and bar experimenting, the Artist and Buffalo Prince I know plan to enjoy theirs at the upcoming holidays. In all, as far as pop-ups go, this was a great experience with some really solid options - if some a little unconventional - for mead. I’m putting Mixed Meadia right up and just below Mead King in terms of Wisconsin mead. I think the Lemon and (if spicier) Jalapeno Mead almost brought Hannah over into the mead camp and so far, only the Root Beer Mead by Mead King has been able to do that, if that’s any sort of ranking criteria! I say, the more mead offered in Wisconsin and sourced locally or even hyperlocally, the better. Mixed Meadia is going to go onto our list of recommended stops when in Door County. If you’re an avid mead fan, I’d even suggest taking a trip to Door County to give them a try.
Until next time, keep on crusin’, don’t stop boozin’!
To learn more about Mixed Meadia Meadery please visit their website at: www.hatchdistilling.com or on Instagram: @Mixed.Meadia