Looking for a new local tipple?

Ireland’s first new meadery in many years, Kinsale Mead Co, opened last year in Kinsale.

This Saturday, August 4th, they’re celebrating International Mead Day with a variety of tours and tastings.

So what exactly is mead? According to Kinsale Mead Co., it’s ‘a delicious, ancient drink made anew, fermented from honey, water and sometimes with fruits’.

They ship their honey from Spain, particularly the aromatic orange blossom honey in their Atlantic Dry Mead, a traditional mead with lovely citrus aroma, lingering honey finish and almost no sweetness.

The Wild Red Mead is is made with with zesty Wexford blackcurrants balanced with the sweetness of dark cherries (it makes a mean sangria), while Hazy Summer Mead, is flavoured with raspberries and strawberries upfront followed by blackberries, blackcurrants and cherries with a smooth finish of blueberries and Spanish honey.

The tour includes tasting some of the honeys used to ferment the mead, an explainer on the process and and a sampling in the tasting room.

Visitors sit at a bar made from a 300-year-old oak tree that fell in Fota Park and learn about food pairing and cocktail making with mead.

Tours (€12 per person) can be booked online here at 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.