Pinesmoke Bee Company

There is a new place in Eustis that's all about bees and honey and mead. Yeah, I tell you what, downtown Eustis is so cool. This place is called Pine Smoke Bee Company. David Martin is there to tell us all about it. Hi, David. Hi, Amy. It's Lake County's only mead lounge, and it comes complete with what is the source of the honey, the bees right here. T.J. Lawrence is one of the owners with his wife here of the property. Good morning, sir. How are you? I'm well, and yourself? Good, good. I like that you get educated when you come to a lounge like this, because a lot of folks don't realize how neat and special mead is, or even what it is. How do you describe it? Mead, at its very basic, is honey, water, and yeast. Honey, water, and yeast. You bring it to fermentation, and your alcohol percentages are going to range anywhere from about 5.5% all the way to about 24%. Wow. And it all starts right here? Yes. You've got a lot of bees around the area, though, not just here. Yes, we keep our bees in Eustis, Mount Dora, Tavares. Nice. All right, let's take a look at this beautiful lounge you set up. I love this. How do you describe the decor? What's the vibe going on in here? It's kind of a bit of a gallery. We've got lots of photos of our local bees. They are nice. We've got honeybees up there. We've got photographs of the local Florida native bees as well. By the way, it's a huge lounge. In the back there, eventually, you're going to be making your own mead on property. But in the meantime, for the past couple of years, you've taught people how to make mead back in that kitchen area, haven't you? Yes, we teach beekeeping. We also teach mead making. Nice. And we do extract honey on premise as well. Let's talk to your honey, your wife, Audra. How's that for a pivot? How you doing, Audra? Nice to meet you, my friend. Good to meet you. Good to see you. Glad to have you here. We should mention that the lounge comes with a nice tasting menu. Indeed. And you specialize in what here? Ah, so sort of our sort of flagship savory dish is going to be the chicken and waffles with our house-made hot honey that we call Second Degree Sting. You want to put that on there, or is it already done? Oh, absolutely. You like drizzle that? Yeah, and then right over top, it gets a good healthy dose as well as for dipping. Love it. Now, you'll pair that up with a flight. I think it's a great way to try it out. It's a good way to go. Yeah, all right. So TJ, come around the bar here. Let's demonstrate to the audience what a flight would look like. Let's start with the mead number one. What are you going to do? Mead number one. This one's going to be Warhammer by Crafted Artisan Meadery. Okay. It's about two ounces. All right. And why is it that color? This is apple, blueberry, and honey. Oh, very good. All right. Number two. Number two. Number two is going to be Odin's Blessing by Bee Nectar. Okay. Odin's Blessing is a traditional, so it's orange blossom honey. Nice. The mead comes in all kinds of colors. I love it. all right what's a flat so uh what's the flight cost here at 20 even 20 bucks well that's a good deal which one's this this one right here is banana and peanut banana and peanut and this is by Brulahan down in south florida well the options are endless oh that's beautiful oh my gosh it's artistry doing the bees proud and number four number four is going to be also by crafted artisan meadery this is spiced maple and cranberry spiced maple and cranberry my goodness audrey do you have a favorite of these four i really i know it sounds super simple but i love odin's blessing like it's very chill you can mix it with the black tea that we have honey sweetened teas here and so you do about a half of the the honey sweetened black tea with the odin's in there it just hides so it makes you feel like you're just drinking tea so that one's pretty refreshing i gotta say very good so when it comes to beer wine and mead which one do you think of the three would be the one that might get you the buzziest, the strongest. Oh, that's definitely me. I would say so too, right? No question about it. So what we're going to do here is remind our audience that you are open what days? We're open seven days a week. Seven days a week. It's also a lounge, so you can come here and play games. You can hang with your friends. It's meant to, you call it a third space. Absolutely. So we have book clubs. So Lake County Silent Book Club meets here once a month. We've got D&D every other week. We've got cozy RPG games going on. and then we just have a bunch of games that if somebody wants to come in, try one out, they can do that all on their own. So it doesn't have to be a group thing. Folks can just come on their own. All right, grab a flavor. Let's do a toast. Paolo, you can grab the fourth one here. I'll just do this one here. Grab one. All right. So here's to Pine Smoke Bee Company in downtown. You just congratulations on your two years of success so far, and I hope you have many, many more. Thank you. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. And we'll send it back to you in the studio. Cheers. I never knew anything about that. That's cool. That's cool. Thanks, David. Over in Lake County, there is a place at Eustace that's all about bees and honey and mead. And it is called the Pine Smoke Bee Company. David Martin went there to learn all about it. Good morning, everybody. We are in downtown Eustace today. Home to Pine Smoke Bee Company, Lake County's only mead lounge. Open seven days a week, and it's fabulous. Come on inside and learn a bit about a drink that's been around for many, many, many, many moons. It predates wine and beer, actually. Say hello to one of the owners here, Audra. Audra, good morning to you. Morning, y'all. How are we doing? Great. I love mead, and not everybody knows what mead is. So what's the one-sentence definition of it? I mean, a lot of people call it honey wine, but there's no grapes involved. So it's honey, water, and yeast. And once you ferment it, the beverage we call it is mead. Mead, and it starts right here with the bee and you got your own right here and not just here but around the area indeed indeed so we keep our bees in Eustis, Madorra and Tavares and we also make honey from the area right here we separate it out by season so a lot of folks won't separate by season we really enjoy doing that uh spring summer autumn is what we have here in Florida hardly ever winter as you might imagine right and you sell it right here in the lounge absolutely we sure do Yeah, but you can take home that honey. But when it gets made into an alcoholic drink, it can get pretty strong. Oh, quite so. So mead does range. I mean, five and a half at the low end, 24 at the high end. So you kind of have to watch yourself and be careful. She bites back, I guess, is what I'm saying. She bites back. Does your husband bite back? I don't know. He's a nice guy. This is TJ. TJ and Audra are a married couple that runs this place. Congratulations on your success, by the way. Two years now. Thank you. You on property here have a large lounge. It's a gaming space. You call it a third space. How do you define that? Third space, yes. We basically create an environment where people can come and chill and hang out without distractions so that they can spend time with each other and meet new people. Not on the phones. Correct. It's actually very rare that we have folks on phones. If we do, it might be a solo person. But the amount of folks that I've seen start off at the two solo tables and then end up at the middle table as friends by the end is quite a lot of fun. That's great. By the way, you know how to make your own mead. You don't do it here on the premise for consumption, but you teach people how to make mead. Yes, we do teach mead making. We also teach beekeeping. That's great. All right, so I asked, how do you consume mead to taste a variety of flavors? You say the flight's the best way to do that. Flight's the best way to do it. The cheapest flight that we start out with starts at $20 and then goes on up the higher alcohol percentage as you go. I got you. This right here is a good example. All right. This is Cafe Meadicano. All right. This next one here is... Coffee and Vanilla. Coffee and Vanilla. Coffee and Vanilla, that Cafe Meadicano. Next one here is Cherry Melamel. So this is a dark red pie cherry. Oh, my gosh. It's quite tart. If you enjoy tart things. I do, and I love cherry. And this one right here is Raspberry and Black Currant. Raspberry and Black Currant. So even more tart than the cherry. Okay. Very good. The raspberry here, this is 15% ABV, so it's quite high. This one right here is just the standard traditional, 13% ABV. Moonshine also has a high alcohol content. Oh, moonshine's very, very up there. That's a whole different ballgame. That's distilled and everything. So mead isn't distilled. You can distill it, but generally speaking, mead isn't distilled. It's going to be fermented in the way that you would ferment wine. Okay. More similar to wine than liquor. So this is $20 for a flight like this. They start at $20, so you're certainly getting your money's worth. But you also have a tastings menu, so you can eat something with your mead. And you, in the last, had some chicken and waffles, essentially, didn't you? Absolutely. The chicken nugs with the Belgian sugar waffles, and then we top that with our second-degree sting hot honey that we make in-house from scratch. Great. And you also have some dips. What's in there? Ah, so we do cream cheese dips. So the garlic is our most popular. What you've got there is going to be the datil pepper garlic. So for our hotheads out there, that is properly spicy. And we also have a garlic hummus and a garlic dip that's cream cheese. And then occasionally we'll do a lemon pepper. So the garlic is definitely the most popular. And the hummus is also made from scratch in-house. I love it. Your motto is we drink and we learn things here. And you do, which is fantastic. I love learning about the process of this. Can we all grab a mead here and do a toast? I'd like the one. The tart one? The cherry one, which is this one. Okay, and then you want to grab one of yours? I'm going to do Lisa. And Paolo will grab the raspberry. Yes, raspberry blackcurrant. So we're going to make a toast to Pine Smoke Bee Company. Where can we catch you online? Like, is there a platform? Oh, yes. So, I mean, if you're on socials, we are on Facebook and Instagram. But if you despise socials, we're also at pinesmoke.com. Pinesmoke.com for all the latest on events that happen here, too. They have plenty of things to do in terms of gaming activities. So, cheers. Salud. Cheers, Paolo, as well. and this is Pine Smoke Bee Company mead down the hatch and we'll send it back to you in the studio while we continue to enjoy this lovely beverage