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Mead & Honey Wine Tasting in Boquete, Panama
Step into the world of mead, an ancient honey wine, with a unique tasting experience in Boquete, Panama. Discover handcrafted mead made onsite with honey from our own bees, from traditional styles to creative varieties infused with real fruits and ingredients inspired by the flowers, plants, and biodiversity surrounding our property.
Mead Tasting Experience & Visitor Information
Discover mead through a guided tasting of handcrafted batches made onsite with honey from our own bees. Learn a little about the ancient history of mead and how it is made, then explore how different honeys, fruits, and botanicals create distinct flavors and styles.
During the tasting, visitors will:
Taste Handcrafted Mead
🍯 Sample a selection of meads made onsite using honey produced by our own bees.
Explore Different Styles & Flavors
🍷 Taste traditional meads alongside creative varieties made with real fruit and other natural ingredients.
Discover the Flavors of the Farm
🌿 Learn how the flowers, plants, fruits, and biodiversity surrounding our property influence the honey — and ultimately the character of the mead.
Learn the Story of Mead
📖 Discover the fascinating history of this ancient honey wine and get an introduction to how honey is transformed through fermentation.
Organic Honey and Specialty Products
Honey Tasting Details & Visitor Information
Duration:
1 hour
Hours
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Price
$15 per person
The Story Behind Our Honey Wine
Mead is one of the world’s oldest fermented beverages, traditionally made by fermenting honey, water, and yeast. Often called honey wine, mead takes on unique flavors depending on the honey and ingredients used during the process.
At Boquete Bees & Butterflies, our mead begins with honey produced by our own bees. The flowers, plants, and biodiversity surrounding our property influence the honey, creating the foundation for handcrafted meads with unique flavors and aromas.
Want to enjoy your favorite mead beyond your visit? Bottles are available for purchase onsite at Boquete Bees & Butterflies. Online purchases are available for customers in Panama.
FAQ
!!to Add Answers!!
What is mead?
Mead is a drink made with honey as the fermentable sugar. It can resemble beer, wine or spirits. In our case we specialize in a wine style of mead and we call it honey wine or hidromiel in Spanish.
Meads can also be made in a myriad of different ways and styles with additions, of fruit or spices or a number of other things! We offer a lot of fruit styled wines, mainly from fruits that grow in our region and mostly on our farm. We also offer ginger as well as coffee and a caramel or bunt honey wines. Some are also aged with wood chips or in barrels.
Is mead alcoholic?
Yes mead is made from fermenting the sugars in honey to make alcohol. Our wines are between 10-14% alcohol. They are usually fermented for around 2 months and aged for up to 3 years.
Is mead the same as honey wine?
Mead is a broad term for any type of drink made from fermented honey and comes in lots of different styles. Honey wine is one type of mead made with wine style yeasts, honey and concentrations and processes similar to wine making.
How is mead made?
We ferment honey with fresh mountain water and yeasts selected for the type of flavor or fermentation that we want. The fermentation is temperature controlled and usually takes around 2 months. Once the mead has reached the desired level of alcohol it is racked or moved off the dead yeast cells into a new barrel for aging. The alcohol is then left to age in our bodega for months or years. Some of our meads have fruit additions in a secondary fermentation process before filtering and aging.
Is the mead produced onsite?
Yes the mead is produced on site and with the help of a grant from Senacyt we are establishing Panama’s first artisanal commercial Meadery on our farm to produce larger volumes of wine on site.
Is the honey used in the mead produced at Boquete Bees & Butterflies?
Some of it is. We are also buying honey for the meads from small producers using with our Senacyt project to help stimulate the honey supply chain and we are working with the UNACHI university to test the honey we use to ensure that it meets our quality standards. Different honeys produce different flavors in our honey wines.
What flavors of mead can I try?
The flavors available depend on the season and also what we are making at the time, but we usually have the following:
Traditional (without any additions just honey) honey wines in a sweet as well as dry presentation. We often also have wines with a caramel twist made from burnt honey
Melomels which is the name for the honey wines with fruits usually include a citrus as we are a farm with many different types of citrus and use for our swallow tail butterflies; Passion fruit as we grow a large number of passion fruits for our heliconias butterflies; Berries such as blackberry that are grown in the mountains; Coffee fruits as we are a coffee farm. We have also done Maranon curacao, guava, pineapple, mango and strawberry.
Metheglin mead, which is the term for honey wines with the addition of spices in this category we do a ginger mead as well as normally a mead with cacao. We add vanilla beans and cinnamon and other herbs from our farm as the flavor calls for.
Are the fruit infusions made with real fruit?
Mead making usually uses fruit in one of two ways. They can be added in the primary fermentation with the honey or they can be used in a secondary fermentation. We prefer to use in a secondary fermentation which affords greater control over flavor and gives us more flexibility in production. Some fruits are used to tweak the final flavor as the taste may call for. We especially like to use lemon or orange peel as a final flavor enhancer.
How long does the tasting take?
A mead tasting takes around 45 minutes during which time you will be able to taste a flight of meads as well as learn all about our process and the history of honey wine.
Do I need a reservation?
Yes, we recommend a reservation especially during high season and on busy days like weekends. Sometimes it is possible to do a wine tasting on a walk in basis but it is highly recommended to book in advance to avoid disappointment.
Is mead tasting suitable for beginners?
As long as you are over 18 and not driving the mead tasting is a fun and suitable activity for anyone who enjoys a new unique experience and is interested in a healthy alternative to shelf wine.
Is mead healthier than regular wine?
We think so. We are currently doing studies with students from UNACHI university to determine if the antioxidants and the minerals in honey carry over into the meads.
What are other unique experiences in Boquete?
We like to hike mountains looking for wild herbs and flowers. Emilys favorite hikes include La Artilleria which is a hike through a dry oak forest to a spectacular view. Also, La Estrella which has a beautiful flower meadow as you approach the summit with aromatic flowers. Walking the Volcano from the Volcan side is a spectacular botanical and geological fantasy experience very much like walking through the Lord of the Rings through Elf forests all the way to Mordor.
We like swimming in cold pools with waterfalls. The three-waterfall hike has a choice of pools in Boquete or there are the nearby waterfalls in Gualaca and Caldera. Some of these also have hot springs inside the cold water pools.
Coffee has to be on the list. My favorite cafés re La Casita and Don Pepe one close and one far away…one with great deserts the other with coffee worth going to the top of the mountain for.
It is mind expanding to go with our Ngabe employees back to the Comarca to see their homelands. There is wonderful hiking and another un-spoilt natural world out there. Their territory makes up 10% of the landmass of Chiriqui, it’s a different world and its right next door.
Coffee and cookies on a park bench in the library park, day dreaming and watching the ducks.
