A New Brunswick beverage 10 years in the making, just in time for the eclipse
John Way saw the eclipse coming years ago and created a special mead for the event at his brewery
When John Way started brewing back in 2014, he set aside some of his first batch of mead for a special occasion.
At the time, he didn't know what that would be.
Over the next three years his business continued to grow, making mead with the help of family and hundreds of thousands of bees.
"If you ferment grapes, you get wine," said Way. "Ferment grain, you get beer. Ferment apples, you get cider. If you ferment honey, you get mead."
As Sunset Heights Meadery and Apiary grew, just outside of Fredericton, that batch of mead waited.
When 2017 rolled around "and there's the eclipse south of us, and we were like, 'Wow, I wonder when the next eclipse is that's going to hit Fredericton?'" said Way.
After a quick online search he knew exactly why he was aging his mead.
"Are you kidding me? Seven years from now? Which will be exactly 10 years from when we started this mead? It all just came together," he said. "It was just like it was meant to be."
Way started immediately preparing for when he'd crack open his aging beverage. But at the time no one he knew was anticipating an eclipse, and no one was taking him seriously.
The Facebook event he created seven years in advance didn't get a lot of attention.
"Mostly disbelief," said Way. "Most people were like, 'Yeah, right.'"
Friends joked with him at the time that they had plans on April 8, 2024, and could he move it a day.
Undeterred, he set out to make something "epic."
He went about "solera aging" that mead, a term that actually has nothing to do with the sun or the eclipse.
Instead, it's a labour-intensive process of fractionally blending that original mead together with mead from more recent seasons to increase flavour complexity and taste.
Once completed, the mead sat undisturbed for five years until Way moved it into four wooden barrels he imported from Scotland. That's where the aging process finishes, much like whiskey.
Now as the special day has arrived, Way is having the last laugh.
"It's a great mix of trepidation and excitement," said Way. "I'm not afraid for the product, the product is amazing, I've tasted it. [It] makes your brain do these frizzly things, it's so complicated."
He's sold tickets to an event Monday where he'll share his mead, named, aptly, Totality, among friends, family and mead lovers with live music — all under a darkened sky.
"We're actually giving them two tickets, because we're giving them a ticket to the next eclipse too," said Way. "So, you just have to wait until 2079 and we're going to do it again."
"There is a caveat," said Way. "I have to be alive to host it."
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