Joel Taylor

Recording the food & flavor adventures he has with his taste buddies.

Zymarium Meadery Orlando - October Vampire Bar THemed Visit

While on a trip to Orlando with a friend who enjoys wine. I serendipitously searched my map app for “wineries near me”. An interesting meadery called, Zymarium popped up and looked promising. Yelp showed a 5.0 rating and the Zymarium website included a list of awards they had won before going pro. For example, winning in the Mazer cup competition multiple times.

It was a 30 minute drive from the Disney Springs mall, near where we were staying. Our plan was to try a few samples, then get dinner.

Upon getting dropped off, it looked like the meadery was closed. The dark tinted windows didn’t show any light inside. When trying the door we discovered it was open. It turned out that they had decorated for halloween and all of the lights were low and red. There were skeletons, black spider webs, and dark red fruited mead called ”Blood of the Elder Gods” in IV blood bags.

Wow we ended up at a vampire bar!

Inside Zymarium Meadery, decorated for Halloween with red lighting and spooky decor

Since it was my friend’s first time drinking mead, we decided to start with the flight from the menu, “Every Mead is Unique”. This offered a good overview of mead from standard mead, hydromel (mead under 7% ABV), fruited mead, and from dry to sweet.

We actually tried 10 samples, and ended up meeting the owners. I appreciated their attention to detail, quality, and uniqueness. I noticed several series of mead that they make. The Endless Series which are big fruity meads with robust fruit flavors, high alcohol, full body, and robust flavors. The Soliloquy series, that use specialty honeys. The Brood series that add single origin light roast coffee to mead.

Three interesting honeys of note were used in the available tapped meads. The first was black mangrove honey. I swear I could taste the ocean tierrer with a certain saltiness and floral notes. This bee keeper has hives at the Cape Canaveral area where it is all black mangroves. The second was Lehua honey. Lehua is a plant from Hawaii that can grow on the lava flows once they cool. The taste was strongly of tropical fruit and to me mostly papaya. Third was tupelo honey. Tupelo trees are from the US south. Tupelo honey is distinct in that it is a clean floral flavor and the honey never crystalizes.

They also had a mead aged for 13 months in amburana oak barrels from Brazil. Amburana barrels are the same barrels used in Brazilian “rum” made out of sugar cane.

I tried two flights at the meadery and took another 5 items home to do a flight with my tasting friends. Two of them I didn’t try in the tasting room but were too exciting sounding to pass up.

Summary of the flights I had in the tap room and the items I brought home.

Flight 1:

  1. Ostara’s Desire: a light bodied dry white wine like mead with subtle apricot and peach. Dry finish and refreshingly clean.
  2. Figures of Oblivion (v2): a light body, hydromel, that had been dry hopped. The honey character was muted and I could taste strong citrus hops.
  3. Florida Lychee: a light-medium body and strongly fruited. Hazy, and looked pink in the red lights. Strong lychee fruit aroma with moderate supporting notes of flowers.
  4. Holly Blossom: Medium body with strong honey aroma, had a subtle “white wine like” funky aroma. It finished semi-sweet with a light grapefruit peel bitterness that balanced the sweetness very well.
  5. Endless Raspberry, Tupelo Reserve: This was heavily fruited with raspberry and had a rich jammy aroma and flavor. Light earthy notes from the raspberry.

Flight 2:

  1. Pineapple Habanero: a full bodied sweet mead with strong pineapple and fruity notes. The sweetness was balanced by a light spicy hot pepper finish.
  2. Endless Dark Ritual: a full bodied sweet mead with strong fruit notes including raspberry, blackberry, and jammy notes. There was a nice acid in this mead that balanced the sweetness and made it very drinkable.
  3. Soliloquy of Nectar, Lehua: Strong tropical fruit notes especially papaya. Strong sweetness.
  4. Brood Coffee: This had clean coffee notes from a light roast coffee, with strong sweet honey character.
  5. Amburana Groves: a barrel aged mead with strong honey and barrel notes. There was a touch of salty notes. This was a nice semi-sweet mead that was very drinkable.

Take home flight:

  1. Blood of the Elder Gods: packaged in a fake IV Blood bag, they recommended I drink this quickly as it is packaged differently and should be refrigerated, but I had to take it out and pack in my luggage for the flight home. I’ll drink this at my local home brew club.
  2. Endless Vanilla
  3. Endless Dark Ritual
  4. Florida Lychee
  5. Pineapple Habanero

2024

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