Honey Sun Iqhilika (Mead) - Chili

Brewed by Makana Meadery
Style: Mead
Grahamstown, South Africa

This bottled mead from a bottle shop poured no head at all. The body was a transparent uncarbonated pee-yellow color. It had amild malt spice thin start and a tingly hot shit hot spice finish! Warning HOT SPICE! Will burn! The flavor is very peppery hot. It is soft at first and fools you then BAAM! The burn comes on like a rocket. Hot spice sweet peppers in the finish. Drastically soft at first then it sneaks up on you and BAAM! the heat hits you like a brick. Way too hot to drink. Months later it is still untouched in my fridge. Its a lot like a Cave Creek Chili beer. Good for hot lovers I guess bu t not for me.

this was a surprise. A richer fold than your average mead. A much woodier nose than I’ve ever dounf on a mead with the honey playing second fiddle to the wood. Still as I’d expect from any good mead. The flavor was intriguing to say the least. An initial thrust of sweet honey is rapidly domnated by a strong pepper burn. This is not the horrid gut wrenching pepper of a certain bottom 50 beer but rather the sweet burn of a GOOD hot sauce. The finish is surprisingly smooth for the bite. Perhaps the best commrlercially available pepper flavored alcoholic beverage I’ve ever tried.

[920-20071205] 750mL (c/o redlight, w/ him, boboski, DragonStout, PhillyBeer2112). Chili baby powder aroma is mildly unpleasant. Clear, light orange red body with no head. HOT chili baby powder flavour. Super hot body. Not of a fan of the baby powder element but interesting to try -- thanks for sharing!

bottle from Knightly Spirits. Sweet honey, with notes of sweet citrus, tangerines/manderine orange, very floral, very little sign of the peppers. Pours blonde, slightly cloudy. wow, its like a smack in the mouth, and then pincing and stinging all through my throat, and i don’t mean this in a bad way. i love spicy food. the sweetness of the honey does mellow out some of the burn. i think i’d like to try this one with some food. but i am surprised at the low rating this mead is really good.

Thanx to RedLight for sharing this.The nose was sweet with some spicy peppery notes.Flavor was thin and sweet but the burn came through on the back of my throat.It finished the way it started sweet and spicy but the heat didn’t linger too long.

Holy cow and then some. The aroma on this one has now set the bar! To give an indication about my feelings on this one, I drew a big heart in my notebook at the top of the page! It smells just fantastic and I couldn’t take my nose out of the glass for several hours, or so it seemed. Even once the glass was empty I kept shoving my nose down in there. I can still imagine it. This was just a blast of flowers. Flowers flowers flowers. Perfumed. Its almost a baby powder type of floral perfume but certinaly not in a bad way. I found myself shocked that such an aroma could be created in a beverage. Sublime was just about the right word. As you can tell, I’m fascinated and obsessed with the nose on this. Flavor is equally floral upfront, with just a touch of flower honey that obviously gives way a burst of tightly focused prickly heat at the back of the mouth and throat. I don’t find the heat to be all that over bearing actually, somewhat medium. Certainly drinkable. Mouthfeel was a touch thinner than I’d like, especially after having Apis Jadwiga only a few days ago - this one doesn’t have that same full honeyed palate. I still love this one anyway! Yet another huge thanks to Brent for sharing.

750ml bottle. Very strongly aromatic - spicy, floral and smoky, almost like a flower garden in bloom at times, incense-like, leafy, rosy and rich. Light golden amber color, clear. Flavor is initially seizure-inducing, literally, with a mega-huge brutal spice and chili character. Wow! Lingering, deep sweetness and residual chili flavor persist, then the heat and the alcohol set in. Somewhat fruity aftertaste. Like nothing I ever could have possibly imagined. Really.

So thedm and hotstuff hand me this glass of mead. It is a still, straw color with a heavy honey, clover flower nose. The initial taste was a painful surprise. This mead is HOT. The floral sweetness is just crushed by the heat of the red pepper burn. Why?