A new beverage wonderland is the latest addition to Durham’s American Tobacco Campus
This is the season for mead.
Something about the fiery falling leaves and chilly nights makes this time of year perfect for the ancient honey wine, spiced and fragrant.
One of the Triangle’s top mead makers is making a major move into Durham’s American Tobacco Campus.
Honeygirl Meadery, and its umbrella company Ment Beverage Co., is set to unveil a new 3,000-square-foot production facility, tasting room and retail space.
“ATC provided a lot of what were were looking for — parking, walkability and frankly there was room to be there,” Ment owner Robby Battle told The News & Observer. “And there’s nothing like this here on campus.”
Honeygirl started in 2014 when mead-maker and founder Diane Currier launched Durham’s first meadery and 10-seat tasting room in a small warehouse space near the corner of Fayetteville and Main streets.
After numerous awards and prolific mead-making, Currier retired last year and sold Honeygirl to Battle, a longtime manager at Bull City Ciderworks. Honeygirl is now part of Battle’s Ment Beverage company, which also makes cider, hard seltzer and brews sake in the new ATC space.
In that new space, there will be two bars, seating for 40 and an outdoor patio in one of ATC’s most visible locations, near the Burt’s Bees cabin.
While North Carolina is renowned nationally for its craft beer scene, mead continues to fit in a narrow niche space of devoted fans, Battle said.
“Realistically, there’s not a lot of competition, it is its own sort of thing,” Battle said. “The biggest component is education. The community of mead makers and enthusiasts has been enjoying it for generations. Some might hear ‘mead’ and think of vikings and medieval times, or that it’s a sweet beverage. But it doesn’t have to be. We got for a balanced wine style.”
Mead is a wine fermented from honey, and like honey, it develops tasting notes and nuance based on the flowers from which it’s made.
“There are mead that will mimic those red wine vibes or pinot gris vibes,” Battle said. “We’re here to show people it doesn’t have to be just a sweet beverage. One of my favorites is a mead made from avocado blossom honey. It’s a very, very dark honey that has molasses notes and drinks like a full bodied port wine.”
With its move to ATC, Honeygirl will make one of the most hyper-local meads in the region. There are active beehives at ATC and Battle plans to use some of the honey for a new mead.
“We’ll produce the product fully on the campus,” he said.
With Durham’s scorching summer fading into a memory, Battle said the fall and winter are usually when mead starts to peak.
“We do a lot of mulled mead in the winter, add spice and really get into the seasonality,” Battle said.
The American Tobacco Campus has been one of Durham’s busiest developments in recent years, The N&O previously reported, and continues to make a big bet on the city’s food and beverage industry. Numerous new restaurants have been added since the beginning of the pandemic and Ment Beverage will join beer giant Fullsteam Brewery as it relocates its headquarters to ATC.
For its grand opening, Honeygirl and Ment Beverage Co. will be pouring samples and giving tours, and James Beard winning chef Ricky Moore of Saltbox Seafood Joint will be serving his hushpuppies with a honey fig glaze. The grand opening is from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 16.
Honeygirl Meadery/Ment Beverage Co.
312 Blackwell St. Suite 103, Durham.
This story was originally published October 29, 2024 at 7:00 AM.
