The Meading Room [October 2022]

Sigh, another meadery… as I said last week, this is a new and local place up in Cave Creek. Since it is not too far from where we spend our winters, I really wanted to go and show my support. I can honestly say that I think this will be the last meadery I will be visiting. They are just not really to my taste, so even if I happen to find myself tasting mead again, [unless it is incredibly remarkable] this will be the last time I write about mead. LOL!! I read about The Meading Room on the Cave Creek Facebook page; it was set to open in August of 2022.

Those of you who know me know that we are not in Cave Creek for the summer, so I put it on my [yes... still paper desk] calendar as something to check out when we got back in town. When we got home in the beginning of October, Shawn went with me to taste some mead!! [well, I tasted anyways... Shawn was my DD] While there, I found out that they were having their grand opening party the very next week with a food truck and live music. It sounded like a lot of fun and right up my good friend Deb Flanagan's alley, so I called her up and we made a date!! [as seen in the second photo]

The Meading Room's first tasting was opened in Sonoita area by the mother/daughter duo Barbara Christianson and Kylie Daniels in 2019. Barbara worked as an engineer for decades and used to ferment fruits with honey as a hobby, and Kylie worked at a winery in Patagonia. The girls wanted to start a new project together and come back to their hometown. Sonoita is a big winery town, and they thought they could do good things if they were to offer products that were different from the other wineries. Well, it turns out that the mead, cider, and fruit wine they were making was totally different.  

The tasting room name is actually pretty clever and a deliberate play on words. They combined the word “mead” which is their craft and what they offer, with the word “room” which makes you think of a homey place to come together and taste mead. Three short years later Barbara and Kylie became partners with Rick and Marie Robart to help them open their Cave Creek tasting room. The Robarts are local to Cave Creek, and this is who we met the first time we stopped in. The Meading Room is located in the cutest little octagonal shaped building on a corner in Cave Creek.

I believe I have regaled you with mead facts in several of my past blogs, including its somewhat long history. I am not going to bore you this week and go into too much depth this time, but I did like what Kylie had to say about mead in an interview: “Every culture has made some version of mead, and they are all completely different. So many different styles with different levels of alcohol content." Barbara and Kylie like to experiment with a wide variety of fruits while combining them with local edible flowers and unique spices to change things up.  

It goes without saying that Deb and I had a great time when we went back to the grand opening. That is just what we do!! It was pretty cloudy and we even got rained on, but we weren’t going to let a few raindrops spoil our fun, the music [as seen below] or the delicious Mexican food we were eating! We really enjoyed the music, played by Adam Townsend and the vibe he was putting out, even though it wasn't our usual grape wine. I took down Adam's info to support him through social media and here's a fun fact, I actually hired Adam to play at my 50^th birthday party taking place later in the year!

The Meading Room changed its name to the Happy Bee Meadery, though I am not sure why. The information I found said that it happened when they became partners with Rick and Marie Robart. But I thought they started out as partners?? Who knows... I just know that the girls [Barbara and Kylie] are still part owners and the name changed.

I have to say that one of the best parts about coming to The Meading Room, other than the obvious... hanging out with my girl Deb, is that while we were here, the owners told us about Raven’s View Wine Bar! I will be writing about it in a few weeks, so stay tuned!

Cheers to you my wine loving friends, and TTFN!!