So you may or may not be a Mediaeval Viking, but that should not stop you from enjoying your own home-made mead, one of the world’s oldest alcoholic beverages. Mead is made from a simple blend of honey and water, then fermented with yeast. Join urban beekeeper Fran Freeman as she leads a group through the making of a delicately-flavoured ginger mead with lemon zest from all-natural wildflower honey.

Fran will cover the terminology and history of mead, issues of safety and sanitation, and talk about hive products in the context of food security and declining pollinator health. Participants will learn about warming techniques, cooling, straining and pouring growlers, and using fermentation locks. Everyone leaves with 2-litres of mead-in-the-making to continue the fermentation process at home, simple instructions, and recipe variations for future mead-making adventures. Each participant will be provided with a reusable glass growler, fermentation lock and bung.

$55 +HST

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Fran Freeman is an urban beekeeper going into her tenth year. Using sustainable, organic practices, she cares for honey bees at several apiaries in west-end Toronto. She runs workshops on bees, hive products, and urban beekeeping as hive consciousness and sells small-batch harvests of honey under the name Sticky Bees Urban Honey 

Every Monday, The Depanneur invites TO’s best culinary talents to lead fun, hands-on workshops.