Prairie Bee Meadery Offering Wide Selection of Honey-Based Beverages

Prairie Bee Meadery offering wide selection of honey-based beverages What started as a way to make use of extra honey line includes a half-dozen award-winning products from a local pick-your-own farm has become a from the international Drink Outside the Grape conunique and award-winning Saskatchewan producer test, in addition to new flavours showing up on a of top-quality meads and wines. regular basis. Prairie Bee Meadery – which first opened its doors Prairie Bee Meadery is able to produce their prodin June of 2016—offers a wide range of products ucts year-round, largely due to the way they go through their storefront and online sales. about things – honey keeps indefinitely, and they Since then, the business has taken off. freeze all their fruits in order to help break them Grandpa’s Garden, the large farm located just outside of Caron. That’s not possible any more. And for good reason. “We’re doing a lot more wine production that we can possibly provide fruit for,” explained Crystal Milburn with Prairie Bee Meadery. “So it depends; we still have sour cherries and raspberries and we have a machine that harvests them. That’s fairly easy for us to get a fairly decent harvest, but it’s not enough. So we have to supplement our fruits from elsewhere and as much as we can, we try and use cranberries, raspberries and even chocolate, their down. That means summer wines in winter are always a possibility. “Our limiting factor has been wanting to use natural products instead of flavouring, and we’re committed to using fruits you can find in Canada,” Milburn said. “So you won’t find us making a pineapple mead any time soon, for example. It’s what can we get that’s Canadian grown. A key part of their business is their comprehensive website at prairiebeemeadery.ca, which offers plenty of information on their product line as well as online shopping options for their dozen-plus honey wines currently available. For those who prefer a more personal touch, Prairie Bee sells their meads and wines at liquor stores all over Saskatchewan, including their Moose Jaw storefront located at 23B Main Street North, across There was a time, not that long ago, where PraiAnd if you’re looking for a more in-depth look into rie Bee could produce and supply everything they how mead and honey wine is produced, Prairie Bee needed to create their tasty libations right there at is currently in the midst of building an hour-long local growers.” Prairie Bee Meadery proprietor Crystal Milburn in their As an example, their haskap berry production is curMain Street storefront. rently limited to around 100 young plants that have tour that takes patrons from hive to tank to bottle, limited production. Enter Northern Lights Orchards running through every step of production along the near St. Louis, Sask., who are now their main supway. That will be up and running this summer and plier of the tart and tangy berry outside of what they promises to be a must-stop for anyone interested in can produce themselves. large-scale mead and winemaking. An on-site apiary takes care of much of the aforeFor more information, stop in at Prairie Bee Meadmentioned honey production, which comes from ery any time during business hours, visit their webtheir many fruit and vegetable blossoms along with site, check them out on Facebook, give them a shout clover, alfalfa and wildflowers. at (306) 692-MEAD (6323) or e-mail at inquiries@ From honey wines flavoured with cherries, rhubarb, prairiebeemeadery.ca. from the Tunnels of Moose Jaw.