If you’ve been keeping up with our posts on our Great(ish) Canadian Road Trip, then you know when we left Watkins Glen, NY we were feeling a little bit down. No matter how up beat and positive you strive to be, its always a bummer when you’ve done everything to make something happen and the universe just says, “nope”. But you know what they say…
Travel giveth and it taketh away!
As we rolled out of Watkins Glen, NY the travel gods decided to smile down on us and rewarded us with a pretty good, conciliation prize! What was this magical mood enhancing experience you ask?
Mead!! Some reward, huh? In case you’re not family with this nectar from the God’s heaven sent beverage…Mead is considered to possibly be the oldest fermented beverage on Earth. It’s commonly referred to as “honey wine” but lets be clear, there’s nothing common about it!
We weren’t expecting to stumble across a meadery along the Senca Wine Trail in the Finger Lakes Reigon, but man we are so happy we did! What we had heard previously before getting to the area was that while the wines were good, they leaned more to the sweet side. We unfortunately don’t like our wine sweet, so we weren’t really planning any stops in the along the trail. But no one mentioned there’d be mead! 🙂
If ever something was a meant to be moment it was our timing as we passed by CK Cellars and Earle Estates Meadery… Sara, who we would come to know and love was literally walking out and had just placed the open sign outside the building. We of course, found the very first spot possible to turn around, and immediately put all plans for the rest of the day on pause until we had our fill (within responsible safe driving consumption limits) of mead!
Although 10:30 am might be a bit early for a tasting of any variety, getting in early, gave us the whole place to ourselves, giving us the opportunity to learn more about what we were tasting, and to have a nice friendly conversation with our server. We never felt rushed, and we learned quite a bit!
Sara our server/ guide to our honey flavored adventure could not have been more wonderful. Not only did she help us decide on which meads to taste based on our preferences but using her background in culinary arts she also was full of tons of useful tips on food pairings to make the most of our potential purchases.
We tried as many meads as our tasting would allow, and in the end it was hard to make a final choice because we loved them all so much… so much!
We opted for a bottle of carbonated mead to take home; something different than anything we’ve had before. The best part? The cost of the tasting was credited towards our bottle purchase,so all those sips were technically free! Winning!
All in all, our stop at Earle Estates cost us about an hour of our time, we tasted some amazing meads, made a new friend, and grabbed a bottle for the road ( well, er campsite, no drinking on the road)! No complaints here!
If you’re in the Finger Lakes Region and have the time, plan a stop here!