Best of Show Bronze: Ma Petite Chouchen, Cyser Semi-Sweet - Superstition Meadery, Prescott, Arizona
Owner: Jeff Herbert
Chouchen is a traditional alcoholic drink, a Breton version of mead from the Middle Ages. Made from honey fermented in water or apple juice, it’s one of the world’s oldest drinks. Fast-forward to modern-day Copenhagen, where Jeff Herbert had attended the Mikkeller Beer Celebration for nearly a decade. He met the folks from the esteemed Danish brewery Ebeltoft, traveled to their 70 acres of stunning farm/brewery and started a collaborative journey that resulted in Ma Petite Chouchen.
The team at Ebeltoft had four barrels that had only held barley wines, and they had been sitting vacant for three years. The brainstorming began.
“We could put some honey or some berries in one of them? And then they mentioned a mead they made called a Chouchen. In France, if you make a cyser with buckwheat honey they call it a Chouchen. They took mead they had made, blended it with barley wine, fruit and put it in the barrels.”
A couple of years later, Ebeltoft had their Chouchen on tap, inspiring Herbert to make his version stateside. The Prescott, Ariz.-based meadery used apple cider from the only commercial cider press in Arizona and blended it with buckwheat honey.
“We fermented it into this beautiful cyser—it tasted great from the get go, but then we put it into a brand new French oak barrel and left it there for a year. And, it is so beautiful. I say this every time I drink it. It’s elegant, it’s got this assertive, oaky character and spicy notes that float in there. Vanilla and honey are present, with tons of barrel character. I’ve only grabbed a case of about four or five meads to take home; we’ve done over 500 products in 12 years. I did that for this Chouchen.”
My Little Cabbage
Before the success of Ma Petite Chouchen, Herbert hadn’t heard much of Chouchen. He just knew it was a syrupy alcoholic beverage by fermenting honey and apple juice, a negative description he says wouldn’t be too appealing to wine drinkers. But, for Superstition Meadery, it isn’t that way.
“I think our style is usually 13 or 14% ABV, and the Chouchen came in above that, which was even nicer—another reason to leave it in the barrel for longer.”
In terms of the name, in French, chou (cabbage) is the equivalent of sweetheart. In German, the saying roughly translates to my little cabbage. The crossover of languages resulted in the moniker Ma Petite Chouchen, a very memorable, sweet name for the semi-sweet mead. Herbert left it to the staff to pick out three entries for the Mead Crafters Competition, and he was happy to see Ma Petite Chouchen.
“I hoped that would win a medal more than anything. If you want to make a good mead, you have to know what ‘good’ is. The best analogy is cooking. When you go to a really nice restaurant and have a great meal or beverage, I think that is what defines something as being good. It’s going to be complex; you’re going to have different flavors and a different experience across the palate. Does the finish last? The texture, the flavor—is it savory?”
Herbert says through trial and error and asking a lot of “good” questions is how Superstition—and Ma Petite Chouchen—reached a new level.
“Figuring out what the questions are, if you’re trying to make good mead or becoming better at something like using honey in a beverage, you need to ask different people. Keep trying different stuff and see what works. Take notes, see what you did, make adjustments. We are psyched Ma Petite Chouchen won a medal.”
View the list of Best of Show Mead Crafters Competition medalists per category: meadcrafterscompetition.com.