The first time Greg Fischer made mead it was 1975, and he was 15 years old. “It was not very good,” he says of the alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey with yeast. “It tasted like rocket fuel. I said, ‘I’m not going to try that again.’” He’d been making wine since he was 12, learning the craft from his grandfather. “I made everything from dandelion wine to sassafras and wintergreen,” he says. “I was intrigued by the fermentation process.” He was more interested in making wine than drinking it, though—until he turned 15. “I was like, oh, I got alcohol here! I started getting a lot more friends.”
Fifteen years ago, Fischer says, most people didn’t even know what mead was. Those that did “thought it was syrupy pancake stuff, and it was kind of a hard sell.” But his products got picked up by the Hopleaf, Clark Street Ale House, and a couple other places, and by 2004 business was good. In more recent years the popularity of mead has exploded in the U.S., with the number of meaderies growing from 60 in 2011 to nearly 300 last year, according to the American Mead Makers Association.
Wild Blossom Meadery & Taproom 9030 S. Hermitage, 773-233-7579, wildblossommeadery.com.
