Now that they have started distributing their products, we are happy to tell you that we now sell the meads made at Blacksnake. Blacksnake Meadery is located in Carroll County and makes many different meads in different styles using honey from their own bee hives.

In case you’re not aware, mead is a fermented honey drink. It’s sometimes called ‘honey wine’ but that’s misleading because it’s really it’s own beverage (just as sake is not really ‘rice wine’). Mead has been drunk for a long time. Nobody really knows how long, that’s how old it is. I really can’t describe the flavor to you if you have never had it, that would be like describing wine or beer to somebody who never had it. It’s often reminiscent of honey, obviously, but also very floral. The honey is typically diluted with water, in case you are wondering, so it’s not syrupy. As with beer brewing, water quality is very important. This webpage on Blacksnake’s site has more information.

We have three meads from Blacksnake. First is the Hoppy Bee Brew. This one is for beer lovers, because it’s brewed with hops. It’s a dry mead because it’s been fermented all the way, and you can definitely taste the piney/citrus hops flavor on the finish.

Second is Sweet Virginia, a semi-sweet mead that has a bit more honey flavor. After tasting this I imagine it would pair very well with spicy food like hot wings are asian cuisine.

Third is Meloluna, a dessert-style mead and the sweetest of the three. Not unlike a high quality dessert wine (but not as expensive). Very concentrated flavors. This would pair very well with salty blue cheese.

These are available at both stores and also our wine bar!

Come to our Wine 101 Seminar! It’s a great way to get started learning about wine and taste some great wines. The seminar starts at 7pm at our Plank Road store. It’s fun and you will leave with a good base knowledge of wine to build on. Plus, I have some real treats to taste, including a delicious Napa Cabernet and an outstanding German Riesling. It costs $15 per person. To sign up, have credit card ready and call (540) 548-3339.

What happens when you take two Silicon Valley geeks and plop them in a Utah dairy farm?! You get the Beehive Cheese Company, makers of delicious, artisan cheddars, each with a unique twist. My favorite (today, anyway) is the Barely Buzzed, rubbed with fresh coffee and lavender. This cheese screams for a dry red wine, but try it also with figs and beer!

There’s an article in today’s New York Times about negotiating the beach house kitchen: the pans that stick, the dull knives, the stale spices and oddities left behind by other beachgoers. We once rented a beautiful house on an island off the Gulf Coast of Florida. The groceries came over on the boat with us, the kids were very young, it was way too much work for a vacation. The stale spices in that kitchen were occupied by some exotic Florida wildlife.

I’ve pared down our beach packing a lot since we’re driving a Prius now, but I still take a good knife and a few recipes and groceries for our favorite beach meals. At the Outer Banks you can get most anything you’d like at the local grocery stores, but I still take a case of wine from kybecca. It’s a lot less expensive than the beach wine shops, and I’m guaranteed to find my favorite bottles here.

I like to plan ahead for the first meal at the beach. After the drive, the unpacking, the last thing I want to do is compete with all the other Saturday arrivals for space in the supermarket and wine shop.

Most houses have one, but don’t take it for granted: bring your own corkscrew!

The Virginia Army National Guard will be doing emergency response drills this coming weekend (August 1-2). You may see uniformed personnel using the University parking lot on Thornton Street by the power plant. There should not be any traffic or nois…

We have the newest Dogfish Head beer – Sah’Tea. It’s based on a 9th century Finnish recipe and is brewed with Juniper and Chai Tea. I split one of these with Kyle a few days ago and we both agreed it was excellent. It’s available at both stores. Click here to read the full description from the brewery.

Actually there was not a lot to summarize, as our main speaker, Julie May of the R Board, contacted me yesterday morning to cancel the appearance. I will try to reschedule her for another meeting.Chief Nye did come however. He reported that recently …

It’s been a sad week here at kybecca – way beyond bizzare celebrity deaths. Our very own Jack Morrison, will be leaving us in two weeks.

Jack has been shopping at kybecca since the store opened in March of 2005. After his beloved record store, Blue Dog, closed in April of 2005, Jack took some time off, and then Kyle offered him a position at our humble wine shop.

Many of our customers were his customers, and remember him fondly (as Jack is always friendly, courteous and professional.) Jack also has a wonderful palate, with an honest appreciation for wine and extensive knowledge. Something you may not know is that Jack is very gifted at writing tasting notes (the majority of the notes you see in the shop and at wines tastings are his.)

So Jack…runner of marathons, drinker of wine, lover of jazz….you are loved and will be missed.

Be sure to drop by kybecca on William Street in the next couple of weeks to wish Jack well in his new endeavors. Also, drop him a nice note on here.

I was reading Eric Asimov’s always fascinating article, this week about beer taverns in New York. This paragraph caught my eye:

“I moved on to the food station. Weary of the numerous variations on the sausage that I had consumed in a recent survey of New York’s latest crop of beer bars, and wary of the slightly forlorn-looking sushi — yes, 21st century — I ordered a burger, medium rare. “We don’t take temperature orders for burgers,” the server told me. “They all come out medium anyway.”I would have been so grateful if it had. Instead, the prefab burger, as flat and tasteless a patty as any ever slung at a company picnic, was cooked dry, perhaps to compensate for the wet bun on which it rested.”

Mr. Asimov might have been served a bad burger, but not because it was cooked medium. In my humble opinion, the medium rare burger is hugely over-rated. Here’s why.

People seem to assume that because the best steaks are cooked rare or medium rare, with lots of pink showing, the same is true of burgers. It is not. For starters, burgers are made of ground beef, which means that you are not eating the best cuts from the cow. Not only that, but unlike steak where you trim the fat off, the fat in ground beef is mixed in. That means that when you eat a rare or medium-rare burger, you are eating uncooked fat. I hate the texture and taste of uncooked fat, as do most people.

Now, when I say a medium burger, I don’t mean the over-cooked version Mr. Asimov got. I don’t mean well done. I mean barely, just barely cooked through. It might even have a light shade of pink showing. That point when the fat has been cooked, but just barely. That’s when a burger is at its juiciest, best goodness.

If anybody does not believe me that medium is the best way to cook a burger, I’m always up for a challenge.

The next College Terrace meeting will be held on July 16th at 7PM at Aggie’s Beauty Salon on the corner of Franklin and Monument.Chief of Police David Nye will be there to check in and to introduce our new liaison officer (Sgt Peterson has retired).I a…