Mace Mead Works

Quite pleased, indeed. This was probably the best place we visited on our jaunt to Walla Walla ...and this is in Dayton (30 miles up Rte 12).

We went in for a taste is mead and were met with great service, a small but nearly perfect menu (from a few tasty treats to well culled sandwiches to a few bagel options (which sounded great even if out of their usual realm).

We had a few pretzels, the mead for which we came in, and the charcuterie. The mead was a bit lighter than others we've had, but this was preferred. It was quite aromatic and more like wine than, say, a liquor (as many meads end up with a thick syrupy mouthfeel).

The charcuterie was one of the most generous we've had. $19 may have felt a little spendy going in, but it provided generous portions, a good balance of flavor, and a perfect match to the mead.

We also had a few complimentary wine tastes (their syrah and barbera) and our daughter was welcomed and downed another pretzel and Dad's root beer.

Great experience, flavours, service, and all...

Once again the tiny towns of WA amaze me.  In the small town of Dayton, we have an honest to goodness "mead-ery" (I don't know what you would call a place that makes mead).  

What is mead you may say?  (because it's what I asked myself when I first heard about it.)  Mead is an alcoholic beverage (8-18% alcohol) which is made by fermenting honey in water.  It is known as honey wine, and here it is sold in bottles which look like white wine.  I've also heard that there are stories that Vikings drank mead from their enemies skulls (but I think that is just fiction...I didn't see any skulls lying around, but I did see a horn, and apparently this is a traditional chalice for drinking mead.)

We dropped in here after some fly fishing and to escape the rain.  It looked like a slow day as we were the only customers.  We were greeted by the friendly barkeep, Taylor (he and his brother run The Works).  

The storefront is unique & stylish (nice to see on main street in Dayton).  In the bar you will see a long wooden bar (very nicely and expertly made).  Behind the bar you can see the area where they make the mead.  There is also a piano in the front of the bar.  Taylor was playing music off of his Zune (people still use those things?!  we talked a little bit about our Apple woes and the death of the Microsoft Zune).  He was playing some unique music with some beautiful Blumenstein speakers (<a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blumensteinaudio.com%2F&s=15d4be51bd741fd33e8fad338b708ee35e5241998d2087e99c5c864064be7912" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.blumensteinau…</a>).

On the day we were there, the mead which was available was their Batch#4 Semi-Sweet Mead, and Taylor offered us a tasting.  It's a unique taste, and struck me as sweet....maybe like a port, but not quite as strong of a taste.  

I like how they describe the mead.  He said it came from Pomeroy (small town nearby) bees, and that these bees primarily foraged for their honey from Yellow Star Thistle flowers.  This is important, because what flowers the bees frequent has a subtle effect on the taste of the honey.  This was the only mead they were using when we were there.  

They had their Batch#1 Dry mead.  They only had a few bottles left and they were sold in fancy wooden boxes for $30 (I bought one....the Batch#4 sold for $20).

Now what is cool is they make craft cocktails with their mead.  They use fresh ingredients, and of course the freshest mead you'll find in Washington state.  Many of their cocktails are common drinks, but, of course, mead is slyly swapped in to serve as the base liquor.  I ordered a Brazilian Girl (ummm....because I....like Brazilian girls, of course); this was their take on a caipirinha.  It was decent.  My friend ordered a Mule (their take on a Moscow Mule), and I do believe this ginger drink was a wee bit more tasty!  

Since we were a bit famished from throwing flies on the "Big" Tucannon, we went ahead and ordered food, and this was easy---there was only one thing on the menu:  chicken tacos.  These were street-type tacos.  They were packed with lots of veggies, and the chicken was decent.  I just wish they were bigger and that they offered other items.