B4
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2022
Couple updates
traditional drink
Michelle Scandalis and Jeremy Kyncl have channeled their love of pollinators and plants into Hierophant Meadery.
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
A Washington state couple has taken the
tradition of mead-making and updated it with
a focus on honey, pollinators and health.
Husband and wife Jeremy Kyncl and
Michelle Scandalis opened Hierophant
Meadery 10 years ago. Hierophant was an
ancient Greek priest who represented holy
traditions.
Mead is a fermented beverage made of
honey, water and yeast. It is often referred to
as honey wine.
The couple makes mead in Freeland,
Washington, on Whidbey Island. They have
two stores, in Freeland and the town of
Mead, Washington, north of Spokane. They
also sell at farmers markets.
Both have studied herbal science. Those
studies led to another question.
“How did we do medicine for the vast
majority of our history as humans, and what
is the science that actually informs that
now?” Kyncl said.
As college students, they got into home
brewing.
“Which a lot of people do, it’s a pretty
usual story,” Kyncl added. “It’s not as nor-
mal for you to take that and make a business
out of it.”
Looking at the Spokane market a decade
ago, they felt it was nearing a saturation
point with breweries. Since that time, the
number of breweries has at least doubled,
Kyncl said.
But the couple liked a lot of diff erent
things about mead.
“Honey tends to taste good with darn near
everything,” Kyncl said.
That gives him a lot of freedom with
ingredients.
“I could pull off of all of these really
ancient traditions to inform modern
mead-making and really bring these ingre-
dients to people’s palates in a way that was
approachable,” he said.
Except for 2020, the business has had
double-digit growth in sales each year, bol-
stered by the general interest in craft beer
and cider.
“People are looking to try new places and
new things, they’re looking for their expe-
rience with alcohol to bring value in the
form of exploration, challenge and interest,”
Kyncl said.
Kyncl predicted the mead industry will
continue to grow.
“A really heavy majority of the popu-
lation still hasn’t tried it,” he said. “If they
have, they’ve only had one, most of the
time.”
Some meaderies stick to the traditional,
15th century English style of mead, which
has a sweeter taste, Scandalis said.
“There are people out there that haven’t
tried a mead that they’ve enjoyed,” she said.
“We try to craft our particular line-up to
complement cider, beer or wine.”
The business works with the farmers who
provide ingredients. The wildfl ower honey
primarily comes from e astern Washington
beekeepers.
Adam and Ashli Manson, owners of
Highland Honey Farm in Deer Park, Wash-
ington, supply honey to Hierophant Mead-
ery. The couples met while selling their
products at farmers markets.
“It’s an art, it’s an actual art,” Adam Man-
son said of Hierophant’s recipe. “I think it’s
very artistic, the way they do it.”
Manson marveled at the way his honey’s
fl avors and colors play a part in the mead.
Whether the honey’s from e astern Washing-
ton or Idaho or comes from canola or blue-
berries makes a diff erence, he said.
“It’s a pretty cool deal,” he said. “They’re
good at what they do.”
Hierophant Meadery grew from pur-
chasing buckets of honey to buying 55-gal-
lon barrels. They anticipate using more than
3,000 gallons of honey this year, Scandalis
said.
It took several years of intense tri-
al-and-error to learn to make a high-quality
mead.
The company now produces 1,000 to
1,500 gallons a month. The volume in 2020
was the same as in 2019 due to the COVID-
19 pandemic, but in 2021, the couple dou-
bled the amount of mead they sold compared
to the year before, Scandalis said.
“We’re getting to that point where we’re
thinking, ‘OK, how big do you want to
get?’” she said.
The couple wants to be as sustainable as
possible, focusing on beehive health and the
inputs they use.
“Choosing mead was really based around
that,” Scandalis said. “We are also very pas-
sionate about plants. Working with honey as
a medium is a wonderful marriage.”
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