What a strange weekend, and a bimbling odyssey across the coastal belt of Dorset, not so much in search of Mead but happenstance conspiring to put it within my grasp on multiple occasions.
From the wee town of Wareham and a delightful tipple in the local pub, the Kings Arms, to a deli in Corfe Castle selling for some reason the Scottish Mead Moniack. I mean why Scottish mead in Dorset?
Even the local National Trust shop was selling mead, a relabelled version of the Cornish friar’s vintner’s mead. Such an excess of diversity leads to indecision, and at £16 for a 500ml bottle common sense suggested that a national trust label doesn’t add that much to the flavour.
Finally in the tourist ghetto of Lulworth Cove a country wine shop devoted to English wines and of course meads. Despite being an independent retailer the shop seemed almost exclusively devoted to the Lyme Bay ranges of both wines and meads, with the suggestion that perhaps that they occasionally stocked the awesome Lurgashall.
Still with free tasting and five varieties in stock, as an advocate of Mead drinking I think they do fine work, and their brochure hints of details that may deserve a return trip.
- Special Mead (honey only) £8.95
- Christmas Mead (Honey & Brandy) £11.50
- Traditional Mead (Grape & Honey) £8.95
- Millennium Mead (Whiskey) £11.50
- West Country Mead £8.95
So what is it that makes Dorset the heart of the Mead country? Do Dorset folk still maintain medieval tastes? or do retired folk settling in cute chocolate box cottages acquire a sweet taste in their latter years?
Or is mead simply part and parcel of the tourist trail, a hint of Olde England, a memento to take home for the mantelpiece or to slowly decay in the drinks cupboard until Christmas?
Still the first mead on the trail, the find in the pub suggests that Dorset folk do drink mead and perhaps a look at Dorset Camra, or the local beer festival may combine various musings.
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