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2-11-25 Tonight we’re talking with Kirubell Araya, owner of The Heritage Winery, in New Jersey. Kirubell has taken over the making of t’ej from his father, and is now located in the old location for Melovino Meadery.
The Heritage Winery has been open since 1978, making it one of the oldest honey wineries in the US. Araya Yibrehu, Kirubell’s father, is a pioneer in bringing Ethiopian cuisine and Tej to the United States. He opened Sheba in 1978, argueably the first Ethiopian restaurant in the US. Over the years he opened several more restaurants, with the most renowned being the Blue Nile in NYC, which became an icon for Ethiopian food lovers.
Beyond this, Araya was also a trailblazer in crafting and commercializing Tej n the US, helping to preserve and share this ancient tradition with a wider audience. This would later become the Heritage Winery.
Kirubell followed in his father’s entrepreneurial footsteps, and grew up immersed in the family business. He graduated from Morehouse College in 2010, and went into commodities brokering, but came back to his roots. He joined the family venture in 2013, bringing a fresh vision and new identity to the Heritage Winery. In 2018 he left his job in finance to dedicate himself to expanding the company.
The Heritage Winery meads are made with organic, single-source honey from sustainable farms. Each batch is carefully fermented to highlight the rich floral complexity of the honey, balanced with the earthy bitterness of hops, a key ingredient in traditional Tej.
Currently they offer Axum Tej, made with wildflower honey, and Saba Tej, crafted from orange blossom honey. They plan to expand into meads that include fruit, coffee and sparkling Tej, moving an ancient drink into the 21st century.
Join us to learn more about Tej and see what Kirubell is doing with this traditional mead!
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Look no further than Honnibrook Craft Meadery in Castle Rock, Colorado, for your go-to destination for wonderful, light, and refreshing mead! We have 20 meads on tap and four seasonal mead slushees. 
Crafting excellent mead requires excellent honey. Luckily The Honey Jar is here to help. Since 2005 The Honey Jar has been supplying delicious pure raw honey in easy to handle 12-pound pails to hobbyist brewers around the United States. Visit us at TheHoneyJarHome.com/gotmead
If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @realGotMead and we’ll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT (United States)
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Upcoming Shows
Show links and notes
- Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff
- The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff
- Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff
Upcoming Events
- Feb 12 – Cloud City Modern Mead, Leadville, CO – Mindfullness Mead Up
- Feb 12 – ARTifice Ales and Mead, Manheim, PA – Brews and Brushes: A Valentine’s Date Night
- Feb 12 – Green Mountain Mashers, Essex Junction, VT – Mead Series Part 2: Fruit Meads
- Feb 13 – Hierophant Meadery, Freeland, WA – Mead and Chocolate Paring Class with Sweet Mona’s Chocolate
- Feb 14 – Brothers Drake Meadery – Columbus, OH – Mead and Chocolate Flight
- Feb 13 – Kingview Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA – Good Brother Earl live music
- Feb 14 – Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC – Mead and Chocolate
- Feb 15 – For You Brewing Supplies, Terre Haute, IN – Mead Competition
- Feb 16 – St. Ambrose Meadery, Beulah, MI – Bee Mine: Mead and Cheese Pairing with the Cheese Lady
- Feb 18 – Bløm Mead and Cider, Ann Arbor, MI – Babies and Brew – toys and storytime
- Feb 19 – Kingview Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA – Trivia Night
- Feb 20 – Kingview Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA – Day One live acoustic music
- Feb 22 – Sons of Vikings, Chesapeake, VA – Mead Tasting with meads from Breezy Hill Meadworks
- Feb 23 – The Great Minnesotan Mead Tour, St, Paul, MN – 3 meaderies, tasting flights, charcuterie and lunch!
- Feb 26 – Cupka’s Bee Good Meadery, Auburn, IN – Mead Makers Night
- Feb 28 – European Mead Makers Conference, Kraków, Poland
- March 1 – Dawg Gone Bees Apiary and Meadery, Hanover, PA – Mead Making Class
- March 1 – Grimsby Hollow Meadery, Middleville, MI – Drink Mead, Learn Things – Fantasy Drawing Workshop
- March 1 – Four Brothers Mead, Festus, MO – 3 Pints Gone live music
- March 5 – Kingview Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA – Trivia Night
- March 6 – Kingview Mead, Mt. Lebanon, PA – Cover 2 live music
- March 7 n- Bumbling Fools Mead, Minneapolis, MN – Viking Mead Tour – Party Bus!!
- March 8 – Starrlight Mead, Pittsboro, NC – Mead and Food Pairing Experience
- March 10 – Happy Butts Honey, Watertown, SD – Mead Making Workshop
- March 15 – Dawg Gone Bees Apiary and Meadery, Hanover, PA – Mead Making Class
- March 22 – The Great Minnesotan Mead Tour, St, Paul, MN – 3 meaderies, tasting flights, charcuterie and lunch!
- April 12 – The Great Minnesotan Mead Tour, St, Paul, MN – 3 meaderies, tasting flights, charcuterie and lunch!
You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com
She is also an experienced marketing coach and consultant who has recently decided to focus her marketing expertise exclusively on the craft beverage market to help meaderies, cideries, breweries and distilleries expand their business and get more customers while doing what they love.