The Process
Our founder Michael Fairbrother has been perfecting his mead making skills since 1995. Those years of perfecting his palate and refining his technique allow us to create beautiful works of art in every bottle we product.
Everything we make is crafted out of passion and love. Explore the ingredients below to learn more about our process.
Honey
All of our honey is either True Source Certified or Certified Organic.
True Source Certified
The True Source Certification is incredibly important, it protects the market from fake honey being imported from China. Fake honey is comprised of high fructose corn syrup and other chemical concoctions to give the appearance of honey (yuck!).
The True Source Certification also guarantees that our honey comes from real bee keepers that ethically source their honey. Every shipment of honey we receive is fully traceable back to the hives of origin.
This certification is crucial to maintain industry standards and prevent colony collapse disorder.
Learn more at www.truesourcehoney.com
Certified Organic
This is an even stricter certification than True Source Certified. To be considered organic, the honey must be sourced from extremely remote areas that are completely undisturbed by humans – meaning the honey cannot come from farmland.
Each bee hive must be surrounded by a 10 mile radius of completely natural land, ensuring the bees can only pollinate in that natural area and not wander into areas contaminated by humans.
Most of our organic honey comes from regions along the Amazon in Brazil, but we have also sourced organic honey from the forests of Zambia.
Fruit
Our fruit ingredients are sourced locally and sustainably. If there are no local options available (mangoes don’t grow in NH… yet) then we find the highest quality available to us.
We use whole fruits when possible, if none are available then we use fruit purées or juices.
Spices
Since none of the spices we use are native to New England, we find sustainably harvested spices of the best quality to use in our meads.
We always make sure that our spices are not poached from the wild (yes, spice poachers exist), and we buy Fair Trade products when available.
Some examples include:
Locally roasted Sumatran Coffee
Sustainably harvested Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beans
Yeast
Our founder Michael Fairbrother has used the same yeast strain for over 21 years of meadmaking, Lalvin 71B.
This white wine yeast strain produces incredibly smooth alcohols and can ferment up to roughly 17% ABV.
The yeast makes all the magic happen, it is our job to ensure they have the ideal environment to do their work.