Just in: a fresh of the boat shipment bursting with New Zealand beers and ciders! Brand new to us, Peckham's is an awesome farmhouse cidery run by a family that lives in the Upper Moutere, right outside Nelson, which is huge fruit-growing region in New Zealand.  The family moved there from the UK seven years ago and wanted to drink good cider but couldn't find any, so they started making it themselves.  They converted a boysenberry farm into an orchard, collected cuttings of traditional cider apples from all over the country, and started growing French, English, and Spanish heirloom fruit. Lime Ventures received four different products from them: two fruit ciders, one traditional English-style cider, one traditional perry.

The Boysenberry Cider is unique because Nelson is a huge boysenberry region.  The berries are grown and pressed at the orchard and the juice is added to their English Cider after fermentation.  It is medium-sweet, with balancing acidity. The boysenberries are Riwaka Choice, a native variety.

The Cider Kir (named after the drink that's generally made with créme de cassis and sparkling wine) is made from black currants grown down the road (literally, a few farms down) and English cider.  Again, it's medium sweet with good acidity, and you get tons of flavor from the fruit.

The Moutere Cider (called "English Cider" in NZ) and Moutere Perry are both made with traditional fruit, mostly English varieties in the cider and a mix of dessert and perry pears in the perry.

From Zeffer, another New Zealand cidery that’s been quite popular so far, is Slack Ma Girdle. This is their heirloom cider, meaning they use heirloom varieties of apples that they collect from the few orchards in NZ that have them available, whereas the regular cider uses mostly dessert fruit also suited for cider making.  The heirloom varieties have more earthy complexity, and higher tannins, and make for fascinating ciders.  This is corked, caged, and sparkling.

And finally, some restocks of Tuatara Pilsner!

Moonlight Meadery, founded by Michael Fairbrother in Londonderry, NH, is on a mission to bring ultra premium meads to the market place.  He says, “It's the oldest fermented beverage, but the least known.  Everyone knows beer and wine, but mention mead and watch the blank looks.  However once they try one of our special meads, they usually start to smile and ask, "Why haven't I ever tried this before?"

Currently in stock!:

Deviant (13.7% ABV) is a sweet, refreshing, smooth blend of honey, apple cider (from Sunnycrest Farms in Londonderry) and ginger.

Wild (14.2% ABV) is a dry fruit mead made with unprocessed New Hampshire wildflower honey and wild mountain blue berries from Alton Bay,NH.

Sumptuous (13.6% Abv) is made from honey and mangos, sweet but not overly so, smooth, wonderful complexity between the flavors and the long lasting finish, with a light body.

Fling (13.3% ABV) is a semi-sweet fruit mead made with orange blossom honey, rhubarb and strawberries. The tartness of the rhubarb adds a citrus note and balances the sweetness.

Wicked (13.3% ABV) is dry, but scented with ginger and Madagascar-Bourbon vanilla.

Sensual (15.3% ABV) is a sweet traditional mead made from just wildflower honey, water and yeast.  It is aromatic, flavorful and deliciously sweet, but not overly so, has a long lasting finish.  Finish a meal with this wildflower mead, Sensual is a great introduction to mead for the inquisitive who want to taste mead for the first time.

Kurt's Apple Pie (16.8%): Mead made from local apple cider with Madagascar-bourbon vanilla and Vietnamese cinnamon added. Ger your piece of the pie! This mead is a great dessert wine that is a perfect finish to any holiday meal.

Desire (16.7%): Enticing, complex blend of blueberries, black cherries and black currants balanced with the basic elements of mead: honey, water, and yeast. Moonlight's flagship mead.

Admiration (16.2%): A soft and flavorful melomel made w/ 72% wildflower honey, 28% boysenberries. This wine ended up tipping the scales at over 16% ABV; we think that the name fits, it's an object of wonder and esteem; a marvel.

Embrace (15.7%): Enticing, complex blend of blueberries, black cherries and black currants balanced with basic elements of mead; honey, water and yeast. Our Flagship mead, Desire is a must with cheese.

Blissful (15.2%): Made from honey, black currants, blueberries, & black raspberries. The currants dominate the flavor which is bold enough to pair with any meal. Semi-sweet, with a tart fruit note from the currants.

Flame (13.9%): Sweet from the honey and tart from the rhubarb and black currants, the sweetness and tartness balance each other out to give an overall impression a of dry beverage, flexible at the table.

Blossom (16.8%): A 15 year old recipe made with local fresh pressed apples that give a tart start with sweet finish. This is a "cyser", which is apples and honey fermented together.

Red Dress (13.9%): New Hampshire Mead at its best. This little number is sweet and sexy, just the right balance between the honey and the red currants.

It wouldn't be Spring without some delicious saisons to sip on the patio in late afternoon sun. Marie-Noelle Pourtois of Belgium's Brasserie de Blaugies is one of the original garagiste brewers, literally brewing slightly tweaked traditional beers in her garage. Based in the small southern Belgian town of Blaugies, just across the border from France. Pourtois's very highly regarded, and yeast-centric saisons have a youthful freshness to them: perfect for increasingly warm Spring days!

We have in stock fresh batches of the fantastic Darbyste (brewed with fig!) and La Moneuse in 12x750ml bottles!