Ingredients
Honey
Sourcing a good quality honey is by far the most important step in the mead-making process. Every aspect of how that honey has been produced contributes to the flavor of the finished mead. The health of the bee colonies, the floral source, the way the honey is extracted, storage and transportation conditions, and many more aspects are all variables that influence the final flavors of the meads we make. With all of that in mind, we proudly source all of our honey from Oregon Trail Honey Farms. They are a local beekeeping operation and our sister company. We have full transparency over the quality of our honey at every step of the process, and every drum is extracted within the same building that we produce our mead. All of the honey that we use is harvested from local flora, either through partnerships with local agriculture or from the natural Eastern Oregon desert wildflowers. This gives us a flavor profile, indeed a terroir, that is highly unique to our area and conditions.
Water
At first, water might not seem like a very important ingredient. However, when you realize that it makes up the majority of the total volume of mead, it becomes clear that water sourcing needs just as much consideration as any other ingredient. While many companies are stuck using whatever municipal or well water that is available to them, we are more fortunate. All of the water used for our mead batches comes from Desert Springs Bottled Water Company. They operate a local artesian well that is naturally filtered through a bed of basalt, giving amazingly clean, fresh tasting water.
Fruit And Other Adjuncts
While we realize it may not always be possible, we make every effort to source all of our other ingredients as locally as we can. The apple juice we use in Criss Cross Applesauce comes from Hood River, and we get our hops in Yakima to name but a couple of examples. It is important to us that we support our local industries and we will continue to make every effort to buy local ingredients.
Additionally, we recognize the value of using natural and minimally processed ingredients. We try to use organic ingredients whenever we can, and we do not use any artificial flavorings or extracts to produce our meads. All flavors come from whole ingredients added during the mead-making process.