Tugwell Creek   Honey Farm   and Meadery

October 29, 2005

Driving north out of Sooke towards Port Renfrew – distracted by the glimpses of the open Pacific on the left - it’s easy to miss the discreet sign at the bottom of the driveway on the right that leads up to Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery. Add a low-keyed approach to marketing to a location halfways up the back of beyond on the far side of Vancouver Island and Tugwell Creek’s continued existence is a puzzle - at least until you taste their products.

Bob Liptrot - Apiarist & Meadmaker

In Canada, to date, only Quebec has been a real hive of activity when it comes to mead-making.  This follows the long-standing European tradition of mead being made continuously mostly in countries and regions where grapes won’t grow.  These are often also spots where beer is the local beverage – not wine - for the same reason! Mead is an alcoholic beverage made from honey that generally has water or even grapes, grape juices or wine added to it.  As long as it is fermented from at least 50% honey it can technically be called “mead”.  Rich in honey and often very sweet, this is the style of mead that used to be available, here in BC, from Ontario’s London Winery. More recently, there was a brandy based liqueur flavored with herbs and sweetened with honey, made in Yorkshire, England called “Bronte” – after the unhappy sisters Charlotte and Emily who gave us Jane Eyre and Wurthering Heights.  Bronte, the liqueur, no longer available here, was even sweeter than the sherry-styled London Winery Mead.

“Sack” is a sweeter style of mead, with more honey.   But not all honey beverages are so sweet.  “Melomel” is made with fruit or fruit juice – but not apples or grapes.  “Metheglin” is a honey wine made with herbs, spices and extracts. “Morat” is made with mulberries. “Pyment” is made with honey and grapes.  “Hippocras” is made from honey, grapes, and spices. “Cyser” is honey with apples or apple cider (… also peaches, cherries or pears).  “Braggot” is honey and malt, a kind of a mead-beer.  “T'ej” is honey, water and hops. It is the national drink of Ethiopia and has a unique taste imparted by the extract of the Gesho tree - honey-sweet and bitter. With this range of honey wines possible, the preconception that they have to be sweet and sticky flies right out the window and into the fields where the bees are plundering clover, salal and fireweed - as well as blackberries and thistles - to make distinctively complex and tasty honeys for Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery. Bob Liptrot and Dana LeComte established Tugwell Creek Honey Farm in 1998.  In 2003 their 12 acre farm on a hillside overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca acquired the license that made it British Columbia’s first commercial meadery.  Since then Liptrot and LeComte have had trouble keeping up with the demand for their unique Vintage Meads, Metheglins and Melomels.

Tugwell Creek Harvest Melomel (750ml) $18.82 has the faintest blush of pink with an underlying hint of orange.  It is softly dry, slightly honey-spiced and dusted with a hint of the Marion berries that have enriched the blend.  Sweetness barely comes to mind, though the wine has a remarkably “weighty” density on the tongue.  Balance, refinement and elegance are very obviously the house style. Tugwell Creek Wassail Blush Sack Mead (200ml) $21.16 is a coppery burnished pink.  The underlying honey adds floral notes to the berry aromatics.  Flavours of fresh peaches slide into strawberry and there are smooth and subtle vanilla oak notes.  Although this is not a “dry” wine, its perfectly balanced acid structure keeps it from seeming too sweet.

Carinolian Bees       & Wassail Blush Mead

Making Sack Mead takes a huge amount of honey and that makes it much more expensive than Metheglin or Melomel.  Any of these honeyed wines would make wonderful gifts for that winelover who thinks they have tried everything.  “Wassail” comes from the Norse toast “Ves heill” - "be in good health". The richest style currently available at the farm is Tugwell Creek Wassail Gold Sack Mead (200ml) $21.16.  Pale gold like a young French Sauternes dessert wine, it is both sweeter and spicier than the Blush Sack.  Honeyed oranges, cloves and cardamom mingle with the rich French Oak vanilla flavours. Visiting Tugwell Creek Farm is definitely the best way to acquire some of their atonishingly elegant products.  Beyond that, half a dozen private Beer & Wine stores already carry Tugwell Creek Meadery honey wines.  Check Tugwell Creek’s website for details at www.tugwellcreekfarm.com or call 250-642-1956.  And yes… they also sell honey!