BA Mr. Affogato

Late Fall 2025 release 

15%

Mead Details 

This mead started out just like batch 1. 

Using Alfalfa honey and local maple syrup from H&H Sugarbush in Dexter MI.  From there it spent 7 months in a fresh-dumped Detroit City Distillery Butcher’s Cut Bourbon barrel. 

We took it out of the barrel and because we love it so much, we added the same Ethiopian Gugi coffee from River Tree Coffee Company out of E. Lansing. (Go Blue). And finally, to finish it off, we added Madagascar Vanilla Beans.   

The yeast we used was EC1118. And this mead was approximately 1 year old before it was released. 

Karl’s tasting notes 

The return of the king? Or perhaps more like a sleeping beauty waking finally, our old legend Mr. Affogato returns! Fresh out of a barrel, our beloved coffee mead finally graces us once again, now with many many moons of smooth barrel aging to -more than likely- dazzle us once again!

First, the nose starts with an enchanting smoothed coffee aroma with a backing of sweet wood barrel. I say “smoothed” because unlike the prominent sweet-java of the original, one whiff is enough to tell just how much work the wood did! Subtle, sexy and downright arrogant scents leave this glass o’ mine. It’s like it wants to say it is “lighter” than the original, and yet silently assures me of its exquisiteness. Opening up the mead is only when those notes of vanilla and honey reveal themselves. 

On the first sip a gorgeous wave of sweet honey-vanilla, semi-sweet-semi-bitter coffee and a caramel barrel washes over me. It’s smooth in all the right places, yet still kicks you with that coffee and a bit of a bourbon’s kiss with a slight burn. That was just the first sip. Further delving hits me almost like a pastry stout or porter beer, but with less of that bitterness. The honey vanilla balances these chocolatey-coffee notes and enhances the natural sweetness from the barrel wood. Much less sweet than the original, to be sure, but its now respectable profile befits its aging. Those that enjoy a mead with a full-bodied flavor journey shall not be disappointed with this humble heir.