Lyme Bay Christmas Mead
This is an annual staple for us, with an order placed before every Christmas for the best part of a decade. Lyme Bay Winery’s Christmas mead is arguably their star offering.
This mead is technically a Metheglin (Spiced Mead) with its rich spice flavourings of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, lemon and orange zest. These are all spices and flavourings associated with Christmas (and are common in mulled wines), so the result is indeed a mead drink that tastes like Christmas in liquid form.
Lyme Bay Winery’s Christmas mead was awarded a two star “Great Taste” gold award in 2014.
Colour
This is lighter in colour than the Lyme Bay Traditional Mead also sold by Lyme Bay Winery. There are hints of orange hues in an otherwise golden drink. There is a noteworthy viscosity (and legs!) despite the lower alcohol at 10%.
Nose
All the Christmas flavours promised on the label come together to make a whole greater than the parts, with individual notes hard to list. The honey aroma still comes through to suggest the spices and flavours are balanced with the original mead body.
Taste
The honey sweetness and citrus are the first flavours to hit you in the initial taste. This leads to a comforting honey and lemon taste so common in hot toddies, cold medicines, etc. The spices are subtle and add a not-too-overpowering complexity to the finish. The length is therefore longer than you get with most meads, in particular for such a light, (relatively) low alcohol style.