New mead tasting room opens near Elsmere

What most people don’t know about mead is a lot.

Terri Sorantino and Jeff Cheskin, the owners of the new Liquid Alchemy Beverages, realize there’s probably going to be learning curve when it comes to introducing drinkers to their traditional honey wines.

Earlier this month, they began welcoming customers to the tasting room of Delaware’s first meadery at 28 Brookside Drive near Elsmere, and the educating has begun.

While mead is one of man’s oldest alcoholic beverages, the couple feel their innovative flavors – they blend meads with Thai chilies, fresh limes, Oregon sour cherries and Madagascar bourbon vanilla beans, among other things – will sate a modern thirst for intriguing craft beverages.

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The funky Liquid Alchemy Beverages building, decorated with a variety of Delaware antiques, is located in an offbeat location, a roofing contractor’s former warehouse off Maryland Avenue that’s near (but not in) Germay Industrial Park.

They’ve made the setting unique because they want to encourage visitors to stay awhile and drink in the surroundings as they drink mead.

On the walls, there’s a former sign from the 1950s that had once hung outside of the Deer Park Tavern in Newark as well as a stuffed boar’s head that was used to promote Boar’s Head Deli Meats. A jokey sign underneath it reads: “Boared with regular beverages?”

The bar, surrounded by orange stools, is embedded with coins relating to the year French chemist Louis Pasteur discovered the principles of fermentation.

Cheskin and Sorantino have been renovating the 4,300-square-foot building for the past year. They scrapped a Valentine’s Day opening after various delays and setbacks, but now are ready to start introducing guests to their gluten-free beverages.

“We’re hoping we’ve created something cool for New Castle County,” Sorantino says. “Mead is something completely different. We want people to come in and enjoy something they’ve never had before. Mead is not mainstream.”

A “meadery” is simply a licensed winery that focuses on making various styles of mead, or honey wine. Mead can vary in flavor ranging from sweet, semisweet to dry, and tastes can change with the addition of fruits, juices, spices and other combinations. The honey used determines the flavor of the mead. Liquid Alchemy uses orange blossom honey.

Can mead become the Queen Bee of craft beverages? Possibly. Awareness of mead is growing, albeit slowly. The number of commercial meaderies in the United States has increased from about 30 in 2003 to close to 300 in early 2016, according to the American Mead Makers Association, a nonprofit organization. The group says about 50 wineries and breweries also have added at least one mead to their production line.

Brimming Horn Meadery is another meadery being planned in the state, near Milton. The founder is Jon Talkington and his business partner Robert Walker Jr., who have spent more than 15 years working for a Delaware craft brewer.

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In Delaware, some drinkers might already be familiar with mead. In 1999, Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione unveiled Midas Touch, a honey-based fermented beverage, made with barley, honey, white muscat grapes and saffron. The ancient ale, somewhere between beer, wine and mead, has 9 percent alcohol by volume.

Cheskin says he feels mead might now be on the cutting edge where craft beer was in 1995 when Calagione founded Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, now in Milton, and began brewing his signature, rule-breaking “off-centered beers.”

“The funny thing is, this is where Sam Calagione was 20 years ago. His styles were new at the time,” Cheskin says. “Once people get exposed [to mead], we think it’s going to boom just like what Sam has done with beers.”

Cheskin and Sorantino had their first taste of mead during a 2012 Maine vacation. At breakfast in a restaurant, Cheskin noticed a chalkboard on the wall listing craft beers. At the bottom in purple chalk were the words “lavender lemonade mead.” He and Sorantino ordered two glasses, and they were immediately hooked.

“It was very champagnelike. It was delicious, like a mimosa,” Sorantino says. They soon bought a mead recipe book and several types of Maine honey.

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Mead is fermented with three basic ingredients: honey, yeast and water. Their early versions of the fermented drink weren’t always successful, but the couple soon hit a winning formula. They now purchase honey from Harvey’s Honey in Monroeville, New Jersey, and some honey from the Gage family in Middletown.

“No one in Delaware has had quite enough honey,” Sorantino says. “We need gallons and gallons and gallons.”

Liquid Alchemy’s meads are cutting edge. This isn’t the medieval mead you might have read about in “The Canterbury Tales.” The meadery's most popular mead is O4, a drink made with mandarin oranges, tangerine and blood oranges. But the meadery has a variety of other flavors such as “Choco-Cherry-Bon-Bon” made with Washington Bing cherries and Peruvian Raw Cacao Nibs and “Pucker Up Baby” blended with dried Jamaican Sorrel (Hibiscus). Seasonal meads are planned such as “Glogg-Tober-Fest,” a holiday spin on Swedish glogg or mulled wine.

Visitors can come for a tour and a $10 tasting, which includes a flight of four meads. Each pour is about 1¼ ounces. It will pack the punch of a wine – the ABV can be anywhere from 10.5 to 13 percent. The tasting room is open Fridays through Sundays. A grand opening, set for Sept. 10 from noon to 9 p.m., will include music and food trucks.

Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 orptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter@pattytalorico

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Liquid Alchemy Beverages is the state’s first meadery. Owners offer tours of the production room and have a tasting room and bar area decorated with offbeat Delaware antiques.

WHERE: 28 Brookside Drive, near Elsmere. It’s off Maryland Avenue near (but not in) the Germay Industrial Park.

WHEN: The tasting room is open from 4 to 9 p.m. Friday, noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. A tour and a tasting of four meads is $10. A grand opening, set for noon to 9 p.m. Sept. 10, will include music and food trucks.

INFORMATION: Visitors also can buy 375-milliliter bottles of mead, which cost $12.50 to $15. Visit www.liquidalchemybeverages.com/.