Barrel-Aged French Toast Mead & Barrel-Aged Banana French Toast

Black Mangrove Blossom Mead with Vermont Dark Maple Syrup, Vanilla, and Cinnamon. Aged in a New American Oak barrel toasted for a warm spice and vanilla profile for 4.5 months.

The elements of some of our favorite flavors harmonize perfectly to create this french toast in a bottle!

When searching for the perfect maple syrup for a dream mead, we sourced a bunch of samples from all the Great Lakes states and all the way up to Vermont. A lot like honey, every syrup had different flavors, aromas, and colors. We tried close to a dozen to find the perfect one — and most were forgettable and average — but a dark amber one from Vermont was by far the best we had ever tasted! Not only did it have those ideal maple notes, but it was buttery!!

Since falling in love with that syrup, I’ve wanted to showcase it in a mead, and the perfect honey to pair with it was Florida Black Mangrove with it’s dark caramel and butterscotch notes. We aged the very high abv mead in a New American Oak barrel with a custom toast for months to layer in more flavors and body, but most importantly the tannins that would help prevent the mead from being cloying and provide it with a clean finish. After the barrel we blended it with the heavenly syrup, providing nearly all the sweetness, let it rest on vanilla beans, and then finally finished it off with the perfect amount of our favorite Korintje cinnamon to bring everything into balance. As always, our cinnamon profile is that of cinnamon buns and baked goods, never spicy red hot fireballs.

The result jumps out of the glass with aromas of buttery, vanilla, cinnamon pastries and french toast, then the flavors deliver on all those aromas. Perfect for a share, a cold night by a fire, or poured over actual french toast, waffles, or pancakes.

For the very limited variant, we finally played around with the dried “Wild Thai Bananas” that have become famous in the stout world. We recirculated a portion of the mead through these banana nibs for nearly a week, extracting all their banana goodness.

Awards:

Silver Medal for Acergyln, best in the United States- Untappd Community Awards 2023 - BA French Toast
Silver Medal for Acergyln, best in Florida- Untappd Community Awards 2023 - BA French Toast