Show me the honey

Rehani with beekeeper Akshay Borse at Gorus Farms

This year, when the team behind Moonshine Meadery sent their entries to the European Beer Challenge, they knew it would be a big deal if they won. Launched in 2018, the brand is India's first meadery based out of Pirangut, Pune. "The folks who grade us are among the biggest buyers, importers, distributors, retailers and in some cases, even manufacturers in Europe. Winning anything here is really about the recognition that an Indian brand, in a new category, can make a splash on the world stage," says co-founder Rohan Rehani.

Founders Nitin Vishwas and Rohan Rehani

Moonshine returned with three awards: Double Gold for their grilled pineapple mead, a Gold for their project x mead and a bronze for their popular guava chilli mead in the meads category at an event held in London this April. Incidentally, it's only the second alcobev brand from India, after Bira, to win at this challenge.

Mead, also known as honey wine, is believed to be the world's oldest alcoholic libation, historically consumed by a rather diverse audience, ranging from humble working folk and Vikings to royalty. Although often mistaken for beer, given that both are brewed and fermented, this drink holds its own place.

The word mead, explains co-founder Nitin Vishwas, comes from the Indo Latin word ‘medu', which is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘madhu'. "Mead is essentially honey, water, yeast, mixed in a certain proportion and fermented under controlled temperatures. Fruit and spices are added to enhance the taste. Meads can exist with as low as 3.5 per cent abv [alcohol by volume]; one can also push a mead upto 12-13 per cent abv. While the main process greatly resembles wine making, when one makes meads with less than 8 per cent abv, the fruit and spice infusions resemble that of craft beer."

Mead is made by fermenting honey with water. It is sometimes flavoured with fruit, spices, grain, or hops. Pic Courtesy/Tanya Thomas &Aroonabha Ghose

Moonshine's grilled pineapple and guava chilli have been two of their bestselling small batch meads, or what they call MeadLABs. The intention behind these is to use only seasonal produce. "We use a mix of pink and white guava and Naga bhut jolokia chillies for the guava chilli mead, and pineapples grilled over coal and aged on oak chips for the grilled pineapple. The effort put into crafting these styles comes through in how delicious they are."

This writer took a shine to the grilled pineapple mead (Rs 199), made using multifloral honey and spiced rum-soaked pineapples. It's smoky, robust and refreshing at the same time. Project x is prepared using single origin honey. "Towards the latter half of 2020, we started sourcing our own honey from bee boxes across the country and made this batch of Project X with a harvest of Sidr honey," says Vishwas. The remaining honey is sold directly through their new vertical, Moonshine Honey Project. Glugging the aromatic guava chilli took us back to school days, when we'd bite into the ‘peru' sprinkled with chilli powder by the sidewalk. Despite the spicy note, it's pleasantly light.

The brand has been consistently experimenting with ingredients, although they may not have struck gold with all. "We have made standalone flavours using peanut butter jelly, hibiscus, beetroot and even bitter gourd. We generally run a lot of these via the tap route [draft] at events [pre-Covid] to check consumer feedback." If they think it's too niche, they avoid going the bottle route. "However, the other filter is more technical - since we use 100 per cent real fruits and spices, some meads start to break down over time. Hence, it's typically risky bottling it as there is no control on consumption timelines and therefore, quality," explains Vishwas.

The Moonshine Honey Project Beebox at Gorus Farms, Pune. Towards the latter half of 2020, the brand started sourcing their own honey from bee boxes across the country and made a batch of Project X with a harvest of Sidr honey

Three years ago when they launched the brand, there was no mead market in the whole of Asia to speak of, observes Rehani. "It's only in the last three years that two meaderies have launched in Singapore, one in Thailand and a few in China. In India, there's one coming up in Chandigarh, one in Bengaluru and hopefully a few more in Maharashtra. The bottom line is that there is an active market in India for flavourful RTDs [read-to-drink] and mead is a great option within this space."

Interestingly, the old world tipple globally earned a reputation among the ‘new generation of hipster drinker', when HBO's hit drama series Game Of Thrones kicked off its sixth season in 2016. Rehani prefers to call this breed of drinkers the early movers. "This is the group which is always looking for the next new thing in the market and is critical to the consumer ecosystem. The feedback from them is important since most often, it's candid and honest." Their audience has evolved and is no longer restricted to age groups, he adds. "Anyone who is looking for taste over intoxication, and a non-bitter drinking experience picks up Moonshine.

The fact that it's carbonated helps add to the drinking experience. That it's also gluten-free and has antioxidant properties makes the choice easier."