If you follow The Magical Buffet on social media, you probably saw that Saturday, August 6, was National Mead Day. Since it was a million degrees outside and we were broke, we opted for a small gathering at our place to enjoy mead, instead of attending events. It gave me a chance to try my hand at making some cocktails with mead. Of course, I opted for Helderberg Meadworks Mead, since we have a long history with the owners, and I know I like it. Our friend brought over some canned mead from B. Nektar, which I had never tried before, but it was delicious. I pretty much drank the whole can of Mango Sorbet myself, I didn’t want to share it!
We made sure to feast the way the ancient Norse would, with fried pickles, pizza rolls, and jalapeno cornbread. Gotta’ keep it authentic. And as long as we were already way off on tradition anyway, I tried a few things out with the mead that worked out in varying levels of success.
The most successful? Mead and Prosecco. I put a small pour of Helderberg’s Cherry Vanilla Mead into a champagne flute and topped it with Prosecco. The Cherry Vanilla is incredibly sweet and paired with the dry Prosecco it was perfection! 10/10 would drink again. I suspect this would have been good with the Heritage Mead as well.
The least successful? The Mead Slushie. I put a bunch of ice in a blender and added a big pour of Heritage Mead, then crushed the crap out of it in the blender. This was CRAZY refreshing given how hot it was, but it wasn’t really special.I still might do it again because it was fun.
Once all of us had more than a few pours of mead, my husband did an internet search for mead cocktails and he found one that sounded good AND we had all the ingredients necessary, minus the decorative bits. The Black Widow Mead Martini: mead, vodka, and pomegranate juice. This was okay. The pomegranate juice I had wasn’t sweetened in any way, and I think that made the flavor of the cocktail slightly off.It’s simple, so I don’t hate the idea of making it again, but I might add a splash of simple syrup.
If you’re interested in Helderberg Meadworks, here is an article I wrote years ago about how mead is made, and here is one from when I visited their first tasting room (they now have two). You can also learn more by visiting their website.
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