Drinking Horn Meadcast

Spiced Pear Mead is here! (well, actually, all of the bottles have been sold already at the time of this episode release. {See: Busy Yule!}.

In this episode, we complete our table discussions with the brewers Charlie, Clint, and Perez by chatting about the origins and flavors of this new creation. We hope you had a chance to grab some and are now really looking forward to next years batch!

One of our 2024 goals is to increase the number of Meadcast episodes here at Drinking Horn Meadery and we would LOVE to hear your ideas and suggestions! Send any and all to Nick@Drinkinghornmeadery.com or leave us a VOICEMAIL for the show!

Creators & Guests

Host
Nick Irvine
Ambassador of Buzz
Guest
Charlie Felkins
Head Mead Maker at Drinking Horn Meadery
Guest
Clint Birkland
Mead Maker at Drinking Horn Meadery
Guest
Nick Perez
Mead Maker and Sales at Drinking Horn Meadery

What is Drinking Horn Meadcast ?

A light-hearted show featuring talks on Mead History, Meadery Events and all types of honey fun!

Spiced Pear Meadcast Transcript

00:05
Coming to you from beautiful Flagstaff, Arizona, this is the Drinking Horn Meadcast. Join us as we take a deeper dive into mead and mead culture.

00:24
And howdy. We're back. Oh we're back. Hey. How you doing? Doing good. Cool. Alright well hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Drinking Horn Meadcast. Meadcast. Yeah it's getting a little tough to say that every time. This is actually episode number 35.

00:51
32, 33, 34, 35, 36. I was mistaken at the end of our Toothless episode on the numbers. So I believe this is episode number 36. Even if it's not, I am going to make it that way. I do know that Elliot was 33, so then 34 is smog, 35 is Toothless. Yes! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode number 36 of the Jinguorn Meatcast.

01:12
Today I'm joined once again. I thought we were gonna be you know just having these fellers over for the dragon leads But they decided to stick around they actually enjoyed it And so we've got the Brewers here to talk about one of our new releases not not yet released not until a Couple weeks two weeks

01:35
Two weeks? Is this end of October? No, oh, November 2nd. November 2nd, so in about, yeah, two weeks and some change, give or take. But what mead is that? Let's all say it at once. Ready, one, two, three. Pear mead with cinnamon and pear. Pear mead thing. Pear mead. Ha!

01:57
Also known as spiced pear. Yes, yes, I think that's what it's going to turn into. The label with all the rules and such. We have, it says pear mead with nutmeg and cinnamon. But it's going to be in our hearts, it's going to be known as spiced pear.

02:13
Right? Yeah. Yes. I like it. We'll see. Yeah. It rolls right off the tongue. Yes. Spiced pear. So yeah, so November 2nd, if you're listening to this past that, I don't know if these things are timeless, so you could be listening to this in 2028. I don't know. Get yourself some delicious spiced pear, and then sit down and listen to, you know, these grand three dude-ers in front of me. We've got Charlie. Hello. We've got Clint. Yo. And we've got Perez. Hello. And we've got me.

02:43
Ah and then yeah, so let's get right to it. We've got a mead in front of us that has a nice little kind of fun story to it. This should be a good episode to talk about the history of this mead. I want to start with the season the seasonality So we all know that I think starting now is it like it's like the end of April we start thinking about

03:13
Yeah, it's like actually I think January 1st. We start with the pumpkin spice stuff. But anyway the season is upon us for these holidays, I'll call them fall or autumn spices that start coming out in the ingredients of different... everything right? I don't know like...

03:36
Food, beverage, candy, candles, shoe insoles. I did read an article though that said, I think for the first time pumpkin spice got beat out by apple spiced, scented and flavored things. What? Yeah. Like, I'd like to see that. Maybe I'll link that somewhere. So like in like all different categories, like. I think it was specifically talking about candles and lotions.

04:06
non-edibles. Right, yeah, and I would feel like pumpkin spice as a coffee is probably still through the roof. Yeah But yeah, so that's cool so out good apple spice, you know coming in there the not a newcomer But I think for putting something on you or smell

04:36
something out of a candle. I kind of agree with that. Especially like lotion, like pumpkin spice. I don't know, you'd attract a certain type of person. Yeah. You know, all the people from across the parking lot would start coming this way. We're right across from Dutch Brothers offices, I guess. Not their production. They don't make anything there, I don't think. No. It's the party place. It's the party place. It is the party place. Yeah. Cool. So yeah, that

05:06
us and we definitely I think I'll let you guys just talk about it but what were the conversations like leading up to yeah to that seasonality and the thought of a bead?

05:17
Well, we wanted to do something to kind of complement our Metheglin mead, which is a favorite of ours. And you know, when you think of fall, most people flavor-wise and scent-wise and stuff go to pumpkin spice, but it's just not really our thing here. None of us are huge into it. And so we were...

05:44
brainstorm and thinking of what else could we do outside of pumpkin spice that would be a nice fall into winter Mead yeah, yeah, I think I don't know if we could like kind of give a one through ten and there might be some zeros, but like

06:06
Is there anyone here that just actually gets excited about pumpkin spice? I mean, I know it's really cool to say no, but like... I think for the first week or so, it's cool that it's back, you know, like I guess early September, usually able to find it at your coffee shops and like, oh, cool, look at this. And, you know, close to chai, but not quite. True. Just a little something different. And then yeah, you just get burnt down on it of, eh, I'm done with that. Yeah. I don't think I, I don't know when the last time I actually went and got a coffee, like a pumpkin spice.

06:35
kind of coffee. Like it just isn't a drop. I mean I'm not trying to be like pumpkin spice is stupid. It's like all you know like those people. It's categorizing. Yeah it is it's overdone. It's really not supposed to be for coffee in the first place but my wife loves it. Yeah yeah we got you know my house always smells like it this time of year. She made pumpkin spice muffins just

07:05
See yeah, pumpkin muffins and pumpkin cookies, always tasty and pumpkin pie. Heck yeah. I guess yeah, what I was trying to say is I don't have anything against it, I just don't go seek it out in the coffee shop. By the way, I didn't see any of those come to the office Charlie. Yeah, you know. Oh man, just throwing it out there, a nice pumpkin spice muffin would be pretty good. Sharing is caring. Sharing is caring, so Charlie doesn't care about us.

07:34
Cool, so we, again I always say we, but it's you guys. You guys kinda gathered around and had this conversation about what to do for this fall into winter. And so how did that kinda go? Well the apple was an easy go-to, but we didn't wanna compete with all the ciders out there this time of year, being that we're meads, and we already have an apple mead. So...

08:04
it's delicious this time of year heated up with a little shot of bourbon in it. That it is. Or just put any kind of tea into it. Yeah okay tea man that was our other episodes. Sorry Charlie I interrupted you. No problem. So what I was gonna say... We were just brainstorming and came up with a pear. We had done a pear mead

08:34
I think it was like the second batch I ever worked on back in 2017. And it was a one and done back then. We had a few issues with it and we decided, you know what? It's time to revisit the Pear Mead and let's mix it up a little bit this time around. Yeah, that's awesome. I love hearing that. And we have... no, we didn't make one of those signs, did we? Is that it?

09:02
Some artwork, yeah. Yeah. That's the pear one right there. It is, yeah. Okay, yeah, so we used to have artwork, like canvases created for each one of our meads and they're hung up here in the office. And yeah, I thought there was one hanging out here. Hanging out. So blast from the past, so the pair mead you said had some issues, I don't know if like you wanna.

09:24
Yeah, so we hadn't refined our filtering method at the time when we made our original pear mead, and we had a little yeast that made its way through into the bottles, and well, when yeast makes its way into bottles and there's still sugar in there, it starts re-fermenting and...

09:47
So they turned into bottle bombs. Yeah, so you got to, you have a, yeah, happy new year kind of situation. You open them. Champagne. Champagne. And then the ones that didn't explode or that were still drinkable were very, very dry. Yeah, yeah, because it took all that sugar and fermented it out. I do remember we used to have, you know, kind of boxes back in the back of some of those and I took them home and I remember, this is actually documented, one of our Monday night Meads.

10:15
I wasn't aware of that and I had grabbed a bottle of Pear Mead to have for the Monday Night Mead. And it was during when we were separated. So I was at my house separate. So our Monday Night Meads were something we started every Monday night because of isolation and COVID. And so we did an online show. And so I'm sitting there and I'm starting to open it and I can see in the monitor like Evan and Kelly looking at me like, oh, like, what's gonna happen? And I opened it and it was

10:45
totally fine. Nothing exploded. It would have been way better if it did. But open it up and they're like, oh my gosh. And I was like, what? And they're like, oh, those are like bottle bombs like, you know, exploding. I was like, oh, okay, cool. And I tasted it. It was delicious. It was great. It's too bad that we had to pull some of those back because it was so good. And I do want to touch upon that just for a second. Some of you may not know that we do not add. So you talked about yeast making its way through and getting in

11:15
A lot of different wineries and meaderies and companies, they do have residual, yeah definitely breweries, they have residual yeast left over but what they'll do is they'll add a preservative basically, you've heard of sulfites, what that does is it puts like a WWF choke hold on the yeast and just puts it to sleep, it's like go to sleep.

11:39
So basically, I mean, we could say it kills off the yeast. We can just say it that way. And so you don't get re-fermentation. We absolutely despise, I think all of us despise putting sulfites into the mead for not only the flavor, but also just the whole, you know, adding those kinds of preservatives. So we have a strict filtering system that keeps it out. It sounds like that was a learning process about, you know, in 2017, that was when Drinking Horn was very, very first producing meads.

12:09
the meat hall that was our first year. Yeah yeah we were we were still experimenting and working out the tweaks and stuff on our... That was a spooky sound right there. It's Halloween! It's funny Evan came in and by trying to be like slowly opening the door and actually exacerbated the door. Somebody needs to grease that door! Perfect time of year though, wouldn't have fit with Christmas. No no yeah it's spooky season for sure.

12:39
So yeah, so through that learning process. Yeah, the the filtering process that we use has taken many years to Refine to get it to where it is today it was not that refined when we Did the pair originally and you know, like you said some bottles You know the yeast didn't get into and it didn't referment it in the bottles and they ended up just fine But you know, you can't you can't see the yeast. So it's hard to

13:09
to know which bottles were good and which were bad and all that. Yeah, yeah, so you can't just like randomly put them on the shelf and hope that randomly everything works out. So cool, so we decided you know what six or so years later...

13:24
to give pear another chance. Yeah. Yeah, give pear a chance. And I like that we didn't use the apple, like you said, and we kind of moved over to that. So what was the next step in thinking about that? Well, we got some, just a base mead and added some pear juice to it. And we were messing around with all the different spices that are so good this time of year, like the nutmeg, the cinnamon.

13:54
the cloves. We tried out a bunch of different combinations and you know some of the more ingredients were just tasted a little a little too much so we we like to keep it simple here. So our two favorite were the cinnamon and the nutmeg.

14:17
So nice. Yeah. Live simply, drink simply. So I remember that day too, that we were adding and experimenting and that was a fun day. It's always a fun day at the office when you guys are over there experimenting and you bring me over my little tasters and like, Ooh, yay. Um, and so how did, how do you guys remember Clinton Perez that day kind of going anything stand out about that taste test with the different ingredients? Yeah. Kind of like what Charlie said, you know, you start putting more and more things in there and then you got to figure out how to balance all those different

14:47
things so that one doesn't overpower the other. You know, cloves are a really strong flavor. Cardamom was really strong. So I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what works and what doesn't overpower the mead itself. Yeah, yeah. Simple as you said before we started recording, you know, the old the old phrase, kiss, keep it simple, stupid. You know, sometimes a lot of ingredients work together, sometimes you gotta keep it simple, for sure. Anyone else hear the

15:17
I just can't sing the card again. Right in my mind. Anyway Clint, so what are you a fan of the spices that were used in the or all those different spices? You like those those kind of fall kind of feeling spices? Yeah but I think honestly we were looking at something towards the end of fall anyway for this because we knew when we were gonna release it and I think it works better to have the nutmeg and cinnamon without extra clove or without the ginger.

15:47
or anything else like that, because it just really works together for more of that wintery feeling, or like the end of fall sort of feeling. Nice! And that's a, you know, we wanted it not to probably overlap the Metheglen as well. Give them each their stage. Yeah, the Metheglen is a little bit more complex on the flavor. This one's a little bit simpler. We wanted to make sure that we could get something that was really yummy hot and really yummy cold both.

16:17
the hotter meads and the warm meads are pretty popular. Oh gosh, yeah absolutely and I can't wait to, I haven't had a chance to, you know, well it's not released yet until November 2nd, but I can't wait to put this one on the stove and heat it up a little bit and taste it, not only taste it, but smell that aroma.

16:36
that comes out of it. And yeah. Speaking of, you worked at the Mead Hall last night, right? Did you have to serve a lot of warm drinks? No. I actually, we have Rockstar Mead Slingers, and so I was not, I did not have to actually go in and do it, but that is not, darn. So when I did work a shift a couple weeks ago, I didn't get any requests for hot meads, but when you're in there, yeah, you can request a hot mead whenever you want.

17:06
I don't know if in the middle of the summer I guess we'd still maybe do it for you, but yeah no sorry that would have been a great story. I should have just made it up. I'd be like yeah they were out slinging them left and right. In fact, why don't you ask me that question again. It's a little unseasonably warm still too. It is right. Yeah I think four or five degrees warmer than that or maybe more than that than average it is. Yeah the mornings are cold though. So again we talked about breakfast mead last episode. You know this one might be a nice little

17:36
Sunday morning mead? I don't know, maybe that's just me. Cool, so we got our paramead base, we've got nutmeg and cinnamon. Those are ingredients that I feel like could come with some...

17:52
some challenges because they're kind of powdery. I feel like so explain to us kind of the process of creating the, adding the nutmeg and cinnamon, that creation. So we went with the whole, whole nutmeg, which, you know, generally when you get nutmeg, it's already pre-powdered, but we were able to find some in the full nuts, which, you know, full nut on this one, right?

18:21
You know, they're about nut size. And we took a hammer to them and crushed them up and soaked them. So same with the cinnamon sticks. We got.

18:39
instead of using the cinnamon powder we went with full sticks and just kind of broke them up that way it's you know easier to deal with when it's not powdery like that.

18:53
Yeah, in my mind that's what I was thinking the challenge would be is like all these powders can get gunked up and stuff because we do have our filtration process. But okay, so crush the nuts, crush the sticks, and soak them. Probably a fresher flavor too. You figure something like coffee, you know, going from a whole bean you grind it immediately, you're going to have a much fresher flavor than if it's been sitting in a tin for X amount of time. Absolutely. Yeah, you increase that surface area of something and oxygen all of a sudden is like, hey, I'm here to play with you.

19:23
So that's, yeah, oxidizing of that. So that's a great point too and we always, you know, that's what we try to do here, you know, we don't use any kind of extracts or you know all that kind of stuff. So I, darn, I don't think I saw, at least I don't remember seeing the nutmeg pre-crush, but I'm looking at the label and it looks to me, did it look kind of like a hazelnut? Yeah, yeah, pretty

19:53
Gosh, texture. Charlie was in the back feeling it, putting it against his shirt. When you guys imagine pouring yourself a glass of this spiced pear mead, where does it instantly take you? Man.

20:08
I'd say back to Missouri with this time of year, the leaves changing on the trees. I used to drive every weekend from Kansas City, where my folks lived, back to college in Columbia and that two hour drive, you're just on the highway cruising. And both sides of the highway is just the most amazing colors on the trees changing. So, it takes me right back there. It's nice. Nice time of year. Yeah. Can you guys follow?

20:38
one up. That's beautiful. That's awesome. And right now we're kind of experiencing that too. I think by November 2nd we'll start to see the leaves more. You're gonna have to kind of start to travel down into like the Sedona Oak Creek kind of area because leaves change dropping in elevation. But like yeah that's a great visual to have those changing of the leaves. Clint you've got a horn full of this mead. Where are you at?

21:08
Probably next to a big large meal and next to my fireplace. Oh, nice. Yeah, nice hearty meal. Go this, what's on your plate? Hmm, turkey. Turkey. Oh, that was the worst gobble ever. Edit point. All right, Perez. I was gonna say cardigans. Yeah, throwback. You're Mr. Roger-ing it up. Yeah, nice. Cardigans, I mean, it's football season, so. Ooh.

21:38
two weeks so we got football games every Sunday Monday Thursday yeah so you know put on my cardigan and watch football all day I'm gonna need a photo of that sounds like a fun neighborhood to be in yeah won't you be my neighbor go Giants cool nice awesome yeah I think I was I had a fireplace in my image a nice little warm mug of it up on the couch with something on on TV maybe one of the

22:08
But I love it. Fall colors, hearty meal, football, boom. Evan, where are you at? I'm going to yell at you over behind your desk. You've got a nice glass of spice paramed. Standing in the doorway of a yurt with the snow falling.

22:24
Well you had time to think of that. Yeah if you couldn't hear, I don't know if that audio picked up, I think it did, but yeah standing in the doorway of a yurt with snow falling. Nice. Hopefully you've got clothes on. Nope. Nice.

22:42
Right on! Well, I think this is a delicious way to enter this time of year. People can get their pumpkin spice somewhere else. They will get their pear spice here and absolutely love it. I can't wait. Actually, now I'm thinking also I just want to throw a plug out there.

23:01
Now I'm going to actually talk about an event. We've got Yule in December and hopefully this mead, I'm sure it will be around right around Yule time. I think this would be a great one at the long table in the Mead Hall while we create our like Yule goats and wreaths and gather. I don't know if it'll last that long. It's a real tasty one. All right. I like it. Yeah. Because that would give it a whole full two months. It would need to last. So yeah, the gauntlet is thrown. Make me a false statement.

23:31
tea person. Okay, yeah, there's another edit. Cool! Well, thank you guys for coming on once again. This has been a blast. We had you guys on all the Dragon episodes and now had you back here for the Spiced Pear Mead episode. And yeah, cheers. We got some empty, empty coffee cups. Woo! Skål! No cup there, but yeah, thank you guys for listening to another episode. This was episode number 35 of the Drinking Horn Meadcast. Find us wherever

24:01
this time, but also we're all over the place. Good Pods is one of our favorite ones because you can actually interact and comment on episodes and leave questions. But if you got any questions, comments, or suggestions honestly for future episodes, we'd love to hear it. You can send me an email nick@drinkinghornmeadery.com or you can leave us a voicemail which would be rad. Please leave us a voicemail. We don't care how inebriated you are when you

24:30
drinking horn that's speak pipe is s p e a k p i p e dot com slash drinking horn and leave us a voicemail with your comments questions thoughts ideas recipes favorite socks I don't whatever and yeah thanks again we'll oh go to the Mead Hall go to the Mead Hall it is a great great season right now through the winter it's beautiful we've got our fireplace going even if it is digital

25:00
Yeah, it's a great place to gather in the winter and watch the snow fall outside. Don't you have a calendar on the website? We do now. We do have, thank you. We have a calendar of events. So if you want to see all of the events, you can go to drinkinghorn.com/events and see all sorts of fun things. We've got our mini moss, we've got our VIYs, we've got a tea and mead pairing, which you'll probably miss. Um, it's this Saturday, but maybe we'll do it again. Uh, but yes.

25:30
you always get a lot of them are free I mean almost all of them are free yeah we've got some that are like five bucks some that are like a little more expensive um like the mini moss one but like most of them yeah are free and fun fun to go to so we're gonna have Perez be our end of episode hitman what was the plug noise you yep there's another plug we got plugs all over the place uh cool thanks guys yep uh see you soon thanks again until next time till next time now

26:00
I'm gonna go.