Posted by Surreybeekeeper | Posted in Beekeeping, Honey, Winter | Posted on 11-12-2011
Tags: German Mead, Honey, Making Mead, Mead, Winter Wonderland London
So this weekend Jo and I have been celebrating our 5th Wedding anniversary and what fun we 
have had. The highlight was last night visiting Winter Wonderland in London’s Hyde Park. If you want to know a little bit more about it you can see the website here but basically it is just a great collection of Christmas stalls and an amazing collection of rides. This go from tea cup rides to full on rollercoasters and giant wheels. It was really great fun.
Jo and I were going around high for two reasons. Firstly, we calculated this was only our 5th time away from the children in 14 months and though we love them with all our heart, it is sometimes nice to simply be the two of us. Secondly there was mulled wine stores everywhere and we simply couldn’t resist, especially as it was a little chilly out last night. The mulled wine certainly warmed the cockles!
Anyway, we found the most amazing stall. Now let me tell you, this “fair” had a distinctly German feel to it with almost all the rides with German text all over them but imagine my surprise as we walked through all the stalls selling toys, Christmas gifts and other random Christmasy things, to see a stall selling wax candles honey and…..mead. I nearly fainted and slightly tipsy on mulled wine Jo and I had to take a look.
It was fantastic. The candles were mostly Christmas themed, the variation of honey amazing (Lime Tree honey, Acacia honey, Heather honey and many more) and then there was the mead. Though there was ordinary mead there were countless other mixtures to try out. The owner (pretty obviously having had a few too many of his own samples!) was German and a lovely guy. It turns out that he was from a family run company in Germany who run over 500 hives (apparently there are about 10 families who run this many and there are two others that run more) who make everything to do with honey. It was great.
Anyway, we left slightly more tipsy than we arrived having sampled most of the mead. We ended up buying a bottle of the mead mixed with cherry (not sure if trying it again sober it will have the same appeal!) but we left happy bunnies and I hope our paths cross again with this gentleman as he was lovely. I hope you like the pictures below.