Have you ever heard of mead? If you’re a Game of Thrones or How to Train Your Dragon fan, you may be more familiar with it, but for the rest of us in Jersey, our knowledge of the Viking-time alcoholic drink is very limited, according to the owner of the island’s first license to make and sell it.
Joshua Jewison, the brains behind Jersey Mead is on a mission to change the lack of knowledge and get everyone drinking the honey-based wine-strength tipple once again.
And it was an obsession with our horn-wearing ancestors that inspired Mr Jewison’s first business venture.
“I have a bit of a Viking obsession,” he said. “I love all things Viking, and in Viking shows like Game of Thrones, mead is usually in the background. So, I wondered what it would taste like, and I decided to try and make it.”
From an initial pang of curiosity, it turned out Mr Jewison very much enjoyed the taste of mead and explained that through the humble beginnings of YouTube tutorials, his mead-making career blossomed.
“I’d been making it for myself and my household originally,” he explained. “And I made too much but didn’t want to drink it and didn’t have anywhere to keep it.
“So, I just thought maybe I can start selling it and then I started planning a business around it,” he added.
“That’s how this all happened.”
But making mead, launching a business and doing all the necessary admin associated with producing and selling alcohol alongside a full-time job, has not been a simple task for Mr Jewison.
But the vision he has for his business and the enthusiasm he harbours for bringing what is one of the world’s oldest drinks to Jersey he says makes it all worth it.
Dispelling any myths about mead, Mr Jewison explained the drink is quite simple to make, needing only three ingredients in its basic form; honey, water and yeast.
“It’s just like wine really, all you that’s different is fermenting sugars from honey [for mead] whereas normal wine is from fermented sugars in fruit juices.”
Considering its simplicity on paper however, he then explained that if the right kit isn’t used, making mead could be quite dangerous.
“If you don’t have the proper equipment then you will basically make a glass shrapnel bomb because the pressure [from the CO2 released from the yeast] will build up that much,” Mr Jewison said.
Currently operating as a one-man-band, brewing new flavours at home and producing successful batches in a warehouse, he hopes the business has the capacity and gains the interest to expand greatly.
Having only been granted the license in the Royal Court in late June – what court records suggest being the first of its kind in Jersey – Mr Jewison hopes with growth will come many other firsts.
“I’m really excited about [Jersey Mead]”, he said. “I just hope people will be interested in trying it.”
Before it hits the shelves, raising awareness of his revamped version of an old drink – which is made using as much local honey and ingredients as possible – is one of his first aims.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to know what it is,” Mr Jewison laughed. “Most people actually have no idea what mead is so I’m having to explain it to everyone when they ask,” he said.
“I wasn’t expecting that [when I first launched],” he added. “Mead is quite big in mainland UK, last year 18 million bottles of it on the mainland but you don’t see any of it here in Jersey,” he added.
Hoping the positive support grows for the product, Mr Jewison said he had already been contacted by a local pub chain and a department store who are both interested in stocking some of his flavoured mead – which ranges from coffee to strawberry mojito.
But with a single pair of hands a brewing process of up to two months, Mr Jewison thinks demand may be an issue.
“I’ve got enough production capability to make maybe 30 to 50 bottles but that’s nowhere near enough to cover all the interest that I’ve had,” he said.
“That’s a good thing, it’s a problem that I like to have,” he continued. “But it’s still a problem.”
One reason to which he thinks he can owe the popularity of his product is to the local ingredients he uses, such as Jersey honey, and a lack of preservatives that other brands tend to use and which he said makes the drink taste “artificial”.
But aiming to use as much local produce as possible, has proved another challenge for Jersey’s first mead-maker, due to supply issues.
“I would really like to use local honey as much as I can but that’s really not possible,” Mr Jewison said.
“A lot of beekeepers in Jersey may only be able to provide you with a small amount of honey because they’re usually already giving it to someone else. It’s just impossible to get a solid amount used for production.”
As a debut entrant to a hospitality business, learning about supply chains is just one of the lessons he’s taught himself in the last twelve months.
“I’ve had to learn everything,” Mr Jewison said.
“When I first thought about doing this [Jersey Mead], I didn’t really have a clue about making alcohol in any way. I had to do all the research and figure out what I needed,” he added.
And now he’s nailed his recipes, his focus is on how he could scale-up his business.
Although islanders may not be drinking mead – which is around the same strength as wine – in tankard quantities like the Vikings once did. Mr Jewison is full of ideas about how the public could enjoy the tipple.
“I want to play with the idea of doing custom brews for events and weddings, things like that,” he explained.
And due to its plain sugary base, Mr Jewison said mead is extremely versatile to experiment with.
“Because you’re fermenting from honey instead of from a berry [like wine], you don’t have to force the alcohol flavour from anything,” he said.
“Honey has slight flavours variations from different flowers, but that’s it,” he added.
He also said that thanks to a wide-reaching community of mead brewers around the world, he can get plenty of inspiration for new flavour combinations. A new successful example being chilli, orange and cinnamon.
Find out more about Jersey’s new Viking-age drink by heading to www.jerseymead.com or the Instagram page @Jersey.Mead.