Lietuviskas Midus Stakliskes

A grand looking Lithuanian mead in a stoneware bottle, and another gift from a Polish friend. Generous friends are helping make this a cheaper journey, but its confusing my idea of doing a price/quality comparison.

The bottle is more impressive than the picture but my camera seems to have exploded so this is what you get. The description on the website is a little dull:

Lithuanian mead Stakliškės is named after the town where the company is located. It is made with natural honey, flavored with hops, lime blossoms, juniper berries and other valued herbs. This drink with little alcohol by volume (12%) is matured by the method of natural fermentation up to 12 months. It is very savory, and goes well with the desserts.

And I’m hoping its less lethal than some of Midus’s other meads, at 12% abv it should be a more civilised drink than the others.

Breaking the paper seal is always exciting, and something about the neck reminds me of Sake bottles. The scent is quite sharp with a sweet fruity follow up.

The first sip has an initial rush, it’s been a while since I’ve drunk mead, followed by a flood of sweet flavours, that hint of fruit and the bitter tang.

All very pleasant and given the slightly nihilistic mood I’m in the bottle is unlikely to survive the night.

Auray Chouchen-hydromel

Ah it’s been a while since I’ve found a new frontier in the world of Mead, my last boundaries being various drinking vessels. God I am such a geek.

After a certain amount of abuse of work contacts, a friend brought me two bottles of Chouchen back from Brittany at what worked out to be about £2.50 each.

I think I’ve written a rambling post about Chouchen 'the drink of the elves' before, I’ve found a facebook page and so I’m clearly not alone in my odd forms of geekery.

This bottle seems quite exciting, it’s a corked bottle and the cork is encased in wax, so I’m guessing this has been bottled with some care. I think the Chouchen is unnamed, or at least my French isn’t up to the translation:

Chouchen-hydromel
“Aux Ruchers d’Armorique”
Plougoumelen 56400 – Auray
Servir tres frais

Which thanks to Babelfish I think means?

Chouchen-hydromel
“With the Apiaries of Armorique”
Plougoumelen 56400 - Auray
To be useful very fresh

The scent is quit sweet but with a bitter honey tang, there’s a cloudy hint and the first sip is that of a sweet mead with a mild white wine tang, and a honey taste. Pretty pleasant for something that’s cheaper than anything I’ve ever tried before.

I wonder to what extent the French government subsidies it as an artisan product, or at least grants tax breaks. At £2.50 a bottle there can’t be much money to be made here.

As the glass empties there is an after taste, a sort of bitter tang, and I think this will be better with ice, but a fairly wholesome start to the world of Breton meads…

Knockengorroch and the mystery of mead

So it’s been a wee while since I’ve drunk much in the way of mead, as I’ve been trying to give my a liver another rest. It’s a dangerous role being a drinker of mead.

However after the excesses of last weekend, my liver is undoubtedly suffering again and in the mix may have been some mead?

After a hectic month of work, hey who am I trying to kid, after a hectic year of work I escaped to the hills of Galloway for a bimbling quiet (but unsuccessful) quest for Scottish mead and a certain degree of festival excess.

Knockengorroch is far enough away from people, the police and health and safety that the last 15 years seemed to have passed it by. This is a festival with a vibe from before the days of the criminal justice act, and the criminalisation of everything that wasn’t part of Thatcher’s vision of a semi detached house in Surbiton.

Recent media hysteria has boosted the profile of Buckfast to that of a Scottish legend. The more you try and pin all the ills of society on one particular drink the more you glamorise is. Perhaps if politicians had the guts to deal with societies problems then people wouldn’t be so keen to embrace oblivion in a bottle.

And boy was Buckfast in evidence from the teenagers, to the bar to the punk bands singing about it. I think even a folk band sang a song about Buckfast.

Also behind the bar was a Banquet mead, which presents a mystery. Apparently it came in a box and the brewer wasn’t listed. My suspicion is that it was a Lurgashall mead but this isn’t going to be the most decisive review.

Through an alcoholic haze it seemed fairly pleasant, sweet, very drinkable perhaps a bit sticky but a nice contrast to cheap nasty cider. As the first mead I’ve had from a bar, albeit a festival bar hopefully this is the herald of things to come.

Or a test of when I can safetly buy 20 litres of mead without destroying my liver, and I can taste it in a more rigerous manner

Lyme Bay Westcountry Mead

So last weekend after an eclectic pub crawl around South London, I ended up in Borough Market a wee bit merry and in a foody mood. Never a cheap combination.

After a certain amount of investigation I bought myself half a kilo of Stilton from the Neals Yard dairy and some Mead from the New Forest cider company who seemed to be the only stall in the place to carry the Amber nectar, from the Lyme Bay range. Ok I admit it, I bought a wee bottle of cider too, but there was an excuse. I'd promised to buy my Dad some Mead in exchange for the Stilton, and it seemed rude not to buy some cider too, after he got talking to the proprietor.

The Stilton didn’t last very long, and god was it good. Cholesterol is something that happens to other people, and the pork steaks in Stilton were worth dying for..

The Mead lasted the week, at least until a small posse of people appeared round my flat to play board games, and I wanted to offer them something more delicate that the Harvest Gold I was drinking, as their first initiation into Mead.

So even after Harvest Gold, the West County Mead was pretty sweet. After the sweetness there’s a strong taste of honey, and the scent to match so it’s quite nice but its sweetness does it a disservice.

Not a bad tipple, I’ll finish the bottle tomorrow and ruminate more, but nothing earth shattering. So I think I’ve failed in attracting new drinkers to the cause. At least this time.

Of Kuksa’s, Vappu and Sima

In a previous post I’ve declared my lust for a Mazer as a traditional mead drinking bowl and I have at least mentioned the Finnish mead Sima.

My dad however has returned from a cruise round Scandinavia with a ‘Kuksa’ as a birthday gift, obtained at enormous cost, thanks Dad. Described thus

a traditional work of Sami duodji, it is a type of drinking cup made by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia from carved birch burl.

He’d been reassured by a local craftsman that it was a traditional receptacle for Mead, the man himself making his own mead, which was unfortunately not for sale.

The story sounds plausible simply because of Sima, and its role in the Vappu festival.

Sima is described as a Sweet mead made with honey, lemon and sometimes raisins. The Sima usually being accompanied by munkki (a donut), tippaleipä (a special Vappu funnel cake) or rosetti (a rosette).

Vappu is the Finnish version of Mayday, and undoubtedly has its pagan origins, it’s described as a two day carnival, a pagan equinox festival associated with Walpurgis Night although it’s not clear cut how old it is.

Vappu: From Helsingin Sanomat

The history of Vappu stems from Germany where May Eve is celebrated as Valpurgisnacht, a well-known witches' sabbath.

Walburga, the original Vappu, was born in around 710 AD, and she died 69 years later in Heidenheim, in what is now Germany. She was an abbess and a missionary. Her life was naturally a good one but what singled her out for canonisation was that after her death and the subsequent interment of her relics (on May 1, 870) in the Church of the Holy Cross in Eichstätt, strange things began to happen. Her shrine became an important pilgrimage site because of the clear liquid, referred to as a “miraculous oil”, that oozed from the rock on which her tomb was placed. Some twenty years after the interment, Walburga's relics were inspected and diffused, and this spread her cult status far and wide.

At this point we move into the realm of speculation. There are two possible theories. On the one side we have the possibility that soon after her death, the memory of her became confused with that of Waldborg, a pre-Christian fertility goddess, and the witches' sabbaths became known as Valpurgisnacht, without materially changing their contents. This confusion is not helped by the fact that Walburga is supposed to be a protectress of crops as well as a healer, and in art she is often pictured with three ears of corn in addition to her flask of medicinal oil.

The other scenario, which seems equally plausible, is that the abbess was seen as a handy tool for quietening down the witchcraft rituals associated with this time of the year. As so often throughout the history of the early Christian church, saints' days and other holy days were often placed strategically in the calendar to counter the effects of “less devout” pantheistic or pagan festivals, and this may be the case here, as St. Walburga and her healing oils were given the tough task of countering the bacchanalian orgies of April 30th.

This particular dodge might have worked for Christmas (timed to coincide with the very rowdy Saturnalia orgies of Roman days), but at least to judge by the standards of Finnish Vappu, there isn't very much of a devotional aspect to be seen.
What began in Scandinavia in the 18th century as a civilised at-home celebration amongst the academic set (many of whom had studied in Germany) has changed with time and was adopted here in Finland with the rise of nationalism amongst students in the mid-19th century.

So clearly two things have come from this wee little cup. The need to visit Helsinki to join the festivities and to drink the mead, and to drink mead sooner to discover and dull the taste of the birch in the Mead.

Midaus Balzamaz Zalgiris

So I’ve cleared my pallet for the 6th and final mead of the Midaus set.At 75% abv I’m kind on intimidated by this one, but as an experience and an obstacle it needs to be done.

And a word of the ennui of existence. It’s a Saturday night and a set of fine musicians are playing up the road. My friends are scattered across London and the country, and so I guess I’m going alone, which would be a lonely experience if I wasn’t so used to it.

Entertainment is what it is, and although better in the good company of others, there is perhaps something in my nature that makes it unlikely to happy. Thus the enuui to which I refuse to surrender.

So to the mead, this time a mead balsam which I think means something.

A mead distillate of wonderful taste and aroma, with cranberry juice and lemon juice.

A mellow scent, with a hint of the strength but not much more. I’m hoping this one isn’t too drinkable, as that way lie blindness and oblivion.

Agghhh the taste entirely what you’d expect almost pure ethyl, numb lips and nothing much to taste. I’d be tempted to dilute it with something but can’t see the point. However persistence in the face of adversity.

So with water it’s drinkable but still no fun, and not to be repeated. No more than I expected and other true meads await.

Midaus Nektaras Suktinis

And so as the evening progresses. I’m investigating the bands of the night on My Space. I’m not sure when the world changed such that every music act the world over embraced My Space, and I wonder if this is the difference and the virtue of My Space over Facebook.

So to the penultimate Midaus product the Suktinis at 50%, again a half finished mead product with alcoholised blueberry, black and red currant juice and lemon juice.

A very different scent to the last, with a pleasant cinnamon air, although there’s no such listing on the bottle.

The first sip is strange indeed, sort of herbal with a sweet milder sting. I don’t know if we’re anywhere near the world of Mead anymore, but I think we’re doing credit to the world of Metheglin’s.

The final taste is increasingly herbal, almost a green leaf taste, not minty but along those lines, perhaps more of a nettle than a mint, with that alcoholic reminder.

Listening to Smokey Bastards version of ‘Drunken Sailor’ definitely helps the spirit go down, although the song Sprocket has more appropriate lyrics.

If a man can’t drink while he’s living, how the hell can we drink when he’s dead?

Feckless nihilism awaits…..