Thursday, December 13
(from left) Kauai vanilla beans, mountain apple, ginger and cacao beans. Daniel Lane photo
The Fourth Annual Holiday Tasting at Nani Moon Mead allows you to celebrate the season with a tasting of the Nani Moon Mead collection, and enjoy pupus especially paired to the honey wine. Gift baskets, gift wrapped bottles and wine shippers will be available.
Pupu and Paring menu includes: Continue Reading →
Stephanie Krieger of Nani Moon Mead. Daniel Lane photo
Word from the honeycomb (instead of grapevine – geddit?) is that we may be in for a special treat on our tour next Friday. I just got word from Stephanie Krieger, owner and brewer of Nani Moon Mead. She has a bottling scheduled for that day, so we’ll get an insider’s look at how it’s done. This doesn’t happen all the time, we just got lucky! Just like fruits and vegetables change with the seasons, so do our tours. Each tour is completely unique. Not only have we have worked with these producers to offer a tour that you can’t experience on your own, the tour changes based on what is happening right now. And right now, Nani Moon Mead will be bottling mead! I do hope she’ll make her Winter Sun Margarita for us again.
There will also be different fruit to sample at the farm, as we are easing from hot summer temperatures and dry climate to cooler temperatures and wetter days. The farm portion of our culinary tour includes a generous sampling of what’s in season, and right now that includes star fruit, dragon fruit, mangos, citrus, and passion fruit.
The whole tour is a food lover’s dream. But most of our guests say the cooking demonstration and four-course lunch is their favorite part. What makes this really special, is that we start the day at chef Higa’s personal garden. Our guests get to meet this very busy chef, ask him questions, and see what he grows to use in his menus at the Marriott.
Chef Higa has created a special four-course lunch menu for our tour, and it’s made from local ingredients. His laid back style and easy laugh invite our guests to ask questions while he cooks lunch. I have learned tips such as the best way to remove water from tofu, and how to get a good sear on pan-fried noodles. Of course, each course is delicious!
We still have some spaces available for next Friday, and with the bottling addition, it’s sure to be special! It’s a little cooler this morning, so I expect the weather next Friday will be perfect. If you are interested in attending, please visit our Kauai Culinary Tours page.
Aloha!
Margarita made with Winter Sun Mead. Daniel Lane photo
Guests on our Kauai culinary tour got to know local mead maker, Stephanie Krieger. As the owner of Nani Moon Mead, she closed the shop, and gave us an exclusive tour and tasting. She also had a little surprise for us all, and taught us how to make a cocktail with her Winter Sun Mead—a margarita no less. She gave everyone the recipe, and I’m sharing it here with you. This is one tasty margarita, but be careful, it goes down really easy! Continue Reading →
Stephanie Krieger of Nani Moon Mead. Daniel Lane photo
“Last January, one of my chief honey suppliers said they weren’t going to wholesale to me any more,” says Stephanie Krieger, the president and creative life force behind Nani Moon Mead. “Our honey demands are 30 to 40 gallons a month, and this was out of the blue. I took a walk and realized I needed to start focusing on hive acquisition.”
Mead, a wine made by fermenting honey and water, has been traced to 7000 BC in Northern China, and was a part of the rituals of the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. The word honeymoon is derived from the practice of newlyweds drinking mead for one month (a moon) after the wedding to promote fertility and prosperity. Continue Reading →
