- Heather Mead -

We're in the Highlands. Where else? Darting down the mountainside, the sun is shining. It's not cold.

The heather is all around us. I'd not seen this before with my own eyes. The heather is knee deep and I have lain in it, surrounded by their blossoms. I've watched the red deer foraging on the rocky shoulders of the mountains, the crystal clear highland lochs, and as I sit here back in my home with my fire dancing before me with my Heather Mead in hand, from the moment the bottle opened my senses were flooded with those memories. This mead is a different beast to its sweeter siblings; this carries more acidity with it, and pushes the flavour of that perfect Welsh honey beyond sweetness. Which means it can hold its own with stronger flavours. This is where I like to find this Heather Mead. Heavy stews overloaded with red meat, beef and venison especially go well with this mead. Their rich textures and flavours open up when they meet this mead. This is more of a winter mead for me, perfect for long nights in front of my fire, its flavours mixing with the smell of the burning wood, warming me and opening me to the tales I read while I wait for the summer sun to return.

This is a great drink.

A fabulous introduction to the world of flavoured mead. Distinctive and bold, stands up well when mixed into any drink and has the most prominent honey flavour of the afon Mel range. Understandably award winning.

Try Afon Mêl's Heather mead because there's so much bad mead out there and Afon Mêl does such an incredible job of making an artisan product. This is the epitome of a natural, artisan product that honors the spirit of what mead used to be and how it was enjoyed in Britain. I can't urge you enough to try this product. It’s amazing! It will change everything you think you know about mead.

Heather Honey mead is the mead by which I discovered Afon Mel - the name alone piqued my interest, how could it not? So it is with great pleasure that I review my absolute favourite mead of all (so far....)

A colour as golden as the setting summer sun, a literal bouquet of floral Heather on the nose that paints pictures in my crazy artist's mind - hues of purple and pink against the amber glow of the sun. Immediately I'm reminded of the landscape of a local sacred space where bright Heather sprouts between the ironstone rocks.

Always with this mead, I find myself at peace even before a drop has passed my lips and it's that all-encompassing sensory experience that makes it my firm favourite. Smooth, consistent and simply delicious, it's everything I want from a mead - if I was going to gift a bottle of mead to someone who had never tried it, this would be the one!

This is my favourite mead in Afon Mêl’s range. It’s light, refreshing, full of flavour and my go-to mead. (Everyone needs a ‘go to mead’).

When you open it pass it under your nose and let the sweet aroma of honey float out of the bottle followed by another perhaps unfamiliar smell. It’s intriguing and triggers your tastebuds to reach out for it. It has a flavour that won’t leave you (yes ok it’s mead), but it has a flavour you want to return to. It isn’t overpowering or too sweet, it is tempting.

The heather works so well with the honey and whatever Afon Mêl do during the process, they get the perfect combination. Some heather meads are weak tasting, this one isn’t. It has a nice colour and unlike some other heather meads, it is light in colour making me want to drink it not hand it over to my GP’s receptionist to send off (darker-coloured meads put me off wanting to drink them for this reason).

Heather is believed to be associated with protection and luck, with some referencing it had an association with the Norse Goddess Freya, Goddess of love and fertility. This is the mead I recommend for Norse-themed wedding ceremonies due to Heather’s association with Freya and it is the mead I use as an offering on my altar and during rituals.

If happiness could be bottled and tasted, this mead is it. If my day has been testing or hard, this mead comes out to lighten the weight of the day. It works very well with cheese-based pasta dishes and garlic chicken for those who like to pair mead with food. It went down very well with honey cake on the beach in celebration of the summer solstice.

An enjoyable mead and everyone who tastes it comments on how smooth, flavourful, and special it is. Thankfully a local shop has started to stock this and other meads in Afon Mêl’s range so I won’t ever run out as that would be terrible!