Creosote and honey nose. Clear yellow. Honey, oranges, and coal up front. Finishes with a more distinctly herbal and fig aspect. Mouthfeel isn’t nearly as silky as the other Makana meads I’ve had, but still nice. Decent amount of character, but wasn’t as enjoyable as Makana’s other offerings, IMVHO.

Pours clear gold into a snifter. Sheet tearing. Apple and chili aromas. Thin sweet apple and honey upfront turning spicy in the lasting chili finish. Gets more spicy as it warms.

Bottle at Spuyten Duyvil, New York
Beautiful dark amber color. The aroma is intense, with mountain herbs, like the herbs found in any Italian amaro (digestive liquor), Alpine herbs (achillea moscata), and light chamomile. The flavor is medium sweet, actually getting dry at the end, with interesting herbal profile and light spices, not much honey and as said not much sugar.
I’m still in favor for the Polish and Danish mead, too dry, but it’s interesting.

The best mead I’ve tasted so far. Reminds me of Church Brew Mole but mexi mole’ is actually an almost black opaque stout and this is yellow and clear. Spicy aroma, you know its gonna be hot. Spicy feel on the tongue. Hot and spice. No carbonation. A little whiskey in there too. Nice for a mead and pleasantly surprizing. Fun. Hot wings finish. Nice mead experience for a change. I thought meade was a lost cause! Yes, something like chilli creek but much higher quality and viscosity.

Glass from bottle, Bavarian Lodge. I had their herbal mead a few months before, and, as a chile-head, thought this would be a slam dunk. Not quite. No faults with its golden mead color. But when I smell it, I get the expected pepper, which I thought were more like jalapeños, but also a whiff of vinegar. Bottle’s nearly empty, I think, maybe there’s been too much air in it. But there’s the vinegar in the taste, too. Pepper profile is like Cave Creek Chili Beer. Even so, I score it a little higher than I probably should; maybe I need to sample a fresh bottle, but I’m in no hurry to look for one.

Holy cow and then some. The aroma on this one has now set the bar! To give an indication about my feelings on this one, I drew a big heart in my notebook at the top of the page! It smells just fantastic and I couldn’t take my nose out of the glass for several hours, or so it seemed. Even once the glass was empty I kept shoving my nose down in there. I can still imagine it. This was just a blast of flowers. Flowers flowers flowers. Perfumed. Its almost a baby powder type of floral perfume but certinaly not in a bad way. I found myself shocked that such an aroma could be created in a beverage. Sublime was just about the right word. As you can tell, I’m fascinated and obsessed with the nose on this. Flavor is equally floral upfront, with just a touch of flower honey that obviously gives way a burst of tightly focused prickly heat at the back of the mouth and throat. I don’t find the heat to be all that over bearing actually, somewhat medium. Certainly drinkable. Mouthfeel was a touch thinner than I’d like, especially after having Apis Jadwiga only a few days ago - this one doesn’t have that same full honeyed palate. I still love this one anyway! Yet another huge thanks to Brent for sharing.

Fourth Mead (and final tasting) of the night at the Indra - Cider, Sake and Mead tasting 8/31/07. Pour is golden and still. Aroma is big floral bouquet, honey and in the very back muted chili spice. Taste is shockingly spicy. Based on the aroma, I thought the chili would be muted, or at least somewhat blended, but this really hit my in the face with its heat. It did not send my body into convulsions or anything, but it was surprising. Its not necessarily HOT pepper, just more of a spicy saffron. After it settled down a bit (or my mouth numbed) there was a nice honey body. Definitely some residual spicinesses in the after taste. Weird stuff, really needs to be tasted to understand.