Long time, no read. I’ve had a pretty crazy summer and sadly my blogging (and drinking) have suffered mightily. Luckily it appears that  things are finally settling down and I’ve been able to successfully hop off the wagon and hit the ground running/stumbling. If I seem a bit rusty, I hope you understand.

I picked up a bottle of Cascade Traditional Mead at Dusty’s and enjoyed it as an after dinner treat last week. I’m a big fan of meads in general but their relative scarcity makes them something of an oddity. I’m not going to lie to you good people of the aether and tell you that I haven’t considered starting an apiary for the sole purpose of brewing my own, but I’m not sure my neighbors would appreciate it. Hit the jump for my thoughts on Cascade Mead.

Cascade Cellars is a Michigan operation based out of Grand Rapids. Their prices reflect the fact that West Michigan is not known as prime grape country, but with a mead that really is not an issue. Overall I was pleased with Cascade’s offering, it is sufficiently boozy but never overpowering. It isn’t as robust as the Chaucer’s Mead that I reviewed previously, but mead doesn’t need to be robust to be good. The most prominent feature of this mead is that it has a freshness that is uncommon in alcoholic beverages. The flowery taste of most meads was much less pronounced but was certainly there, however the taste conjured a feeling of the air above the fields of clover than of the clover itself. While I would have appreciated a bit more complexity in this draught, I wasn’t disappointed. If mead is your thing it’s definitely worth picking up a bottle.