Last Updated on April 28, 2023 by mark
Danielle and Derek Busch are the Founders of Batch Mead, a family-owned meadery in Temecula, California. Under their leadership, the meadery specializes in locally sourced, small batches of mead and hard cider.
Batch Mead consecutively won “Best in Show” from the San Diego International Beer Festival from 2020 to 2022 and was also named “Best Mead” during the San Diego International Beer Competition in 2021.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Derek Busch shares why he and his wife prefer mead over wine and beer
- The kinds of beverages Batch Mead creates
- How mead evolves as it ages
- Danielle Busch talks about the shift from experimenting in their kitchen to launching a commercial product
- Batch Mead’s go-to-market strategy
- The difference between meads in bottles vs. cans
- How honey changes the flavor profile of mead
- Batch Mead’s club memberships and perks
- The landscape of breweries and meaderies in Temecula
- Danielle talks about Batch Mead’s cider style
- Derek shares some of their meadery’s new fermentations
In this episode with Danielle and Derek Busch
How does a husband and wife duo transition from experimenting with meads in their kitchen to launching these products to the public?
Batch Mead grew after a wine kit experience went wrong. While researching other alcohols he could make, Derek Busch heard the mention of mead in a TV show. This casual encounter spurred his love for brewing. This led Derek and his wife, Danielle, to their current endeavors — regularly producing batches of flavorful mead.
In today’s episode of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast, Drew Thomas Hendricks and Bianca Harmon are joined by Danielle and Derek Busch, Founders of Batch Mead, as they give a glimpse into their meadery’s humble beginnings. Danielle and Derek also share their brewing process, how the pandemic changed their approach, and give a peek into their plans for Batch Mead’s future.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Barrels Ahead
- Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn
- Bianca Harmon on LinkedIn
- Danielle Busch on LinkedIn
- Derek Busch on LinkedIn
- Batch Mead
- “Simplifying The Wholesale Distribution Model With Cheryl Murphy Durzy of LibDib”
- “A Honey Wine Like No Other With Brian McMillin of Feisty Brood Meadery”
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.
Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.
At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.
Our team at Barrels Ahead helps you leverage your knowledge so you can enjoy the results and revenue your business deserves.
So, what are you waiting for? Unlock your results today!
To learn more, visit barrelsahead.com or email us at hello@barrelsahead.com to schedule a strategy call.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast where we feature top leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry with your host Drew Hendricks. Now let’s get started with the show.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 0:19
Drew Thomas Hendricks here on the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. On the show, I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Today we are going to talk about all things mead insider with a new meadery down in Temecula, California. But before I formally introduce our guests, that it is a sponsored message. Today’s episode is sponsored by Barrels Ahead, at Barrels Ahead we work with you to implement a one of a kind marketing strategy, one that’ll highlight your authenticity, tells your story and connects you with your ideal customers. In short, we’ll have wineries and craft beverage producers unlock their story to unleash their revenue. Go to barrelsahead.com today to learn more. Today, Bianca Herman our DTC strategist is joining us again. How’s it going, Bianca?
Bianca Harmon 1:04
Going great, Drew, really looking forward to the show today.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:07
Yeah, I am super excited to talk today. We have Danielle and Derek Busch on the on the line here. And they are the founders of Batch Mead and cider in Temecula, California. How’s it going? Danielle and Derek.
Danielle Busch 1:20
Good. Hi.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:21
Welcome to the show.
Danielle Busch 1:24
Thank you. Thanks.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:25
Let’s see we’ve got so exploring your story. So you’re, you launched Batch Mead in 2019. Right?
Danielle Busch 1:34
Yep, November 2019.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 1:36
Congrats, congrats. Now let’s What led you into Mead versus wine? Beer?
Derek Busch 1:43
Well, she got me into it, you can say. So she got me a wine kit many years ago. It’s like over 10 years ago now. And I made my first wine, it was pretty good. And then quickly found Vikings on the History Channel. And they were talking about debut and what 2011. And then I was like, I gotta make that. So we went with that. And after my first batch, I’ve been stuck to it ever since it’s been my favorite thing to make.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 2:10
That’s what excites me about it.
Derek Busch 2:12
It’s just versatile, you can make any flavor under the sun, your creativity is the sky’s the limit. So
Drew Thomas Hendricks 2:20
that’s what that’s one of the things I love about it. Because for I mean, it’s we’re trying to get the the word of mead out. It’s made from Honey, it’s fermented honey, but it serves in such a such a good base, like you’re saying for its versatility. Now and I guess as we’re diving into the mead, what’s the style of mead that you guys create?
Derek Busch 2:41
For the most part, we create metal melts. And in the fall we do more spice meads, which are known as medical ins. And then we do a few traditionals as well that come out of the barrel, we have a barrel age program. Just like a wine mead also gets better with time.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 2:58
But it doesn’t. Okay, how does mead evolve as it ages.
Derek Busch 3:03
So the acidity is brought down a little bit, it gets more rounded out because honey is acidic, it’s going in about 3.8 ph which is akin to some white wines out there that she received decided to gets rounded out you get micro oxidization which also helps with the palate and the the mouthfeel. So just becomes more well rounded and better tasting I would say and see what Ah,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 3:31
yeah, no, I find it ironic, you found you found it the meadery After watching the Vikings channel, but that’s one of the biggest misconceptions a lot of people have at least I see in trying to sell into this category is that people attended a renaissance festival or they attended some sort of a fair and they’d have something like Chaucer’s mead or some just very sweet
Danielle Busch 3:53
white wine blending.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 3:56
So one of the things that I’m always trying to do is it there’s so much diversity and it can be such a such an elegant beverage.
Danielle Busch 4:06
Definitely, it’s, it’s something that we try to expand upon. So a lot of our like our packaging doesn’t really play into like the whole biking or anything like that. And actually there’s they say that the historian say the mead originated in Asia in about 7000 BC. And so they traded with the Vikings and the Vikings just developed an affinity for it. And so everybody kind of associates it with with the Viking historic period, but it’s actually earlier than that and there’s even some records of 20,000 BCE with the African bush people so it’s definitely has some historic origins, but there’s a lot of ability to kind of manipulate it and make it into something that’s that’s an elevated, higher, higher purity beverage.
Derek Busch 4:57
All right, anybody that anywhere that has bees and honey has had me. So it happens in nature as soon as you dilute honey with water, you’re gonna make me what I tell people all the time. It’s easy to make hard to make well.
Bianca Harmon 5:12
Yes. So then what’s your secret to now making it? Well, you know, you started off just making it at home. And now here you are
Danielle Busch 5:20
hyper experimentation. So he made like least over 100 different batches of mead before we opened commercially and just trying to experiment to find what’s the right yeast? What’s the right level of honey and water? What’s the right? The temperature control? So he has this whole system that he’s developed because me it’s like the wild wild west where you don’t have it’s not like you have the cab sav recipe of how to make wine. There’s, there’s really no you know, you could go to UC Davis for winemaking they have a three day class for mead making that doesn’t quite go into the same level of detail. But there’s, there’s this whole process that he’s created by just type or experimentation of like this works. This doesn’t work of like filtering to make things age faster, keeping things at the right temperature,
Derek Busch 6:10
nutrients, because honey is nutrient deficient. It’s not like a wine list or a beer mash right? So it doesn’t have the micronutrients you need to kick off a successful and healthy fermentation. So you have to supplement with different things that are out there on the market for winemaking.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 6:29
Very interesting. No, in numbers experimentation so this is a part I always curious because so many people listen to the show. And they they’ve got the idea they want to start a media site or go into a brewery, how do you get from the experimenting into your in your kitchen, to launching a commercial product, other than experimentation?
Danielle Busch 6:51
I would say for for for us there. You know there’s the product part, there’s the mead part that you need to make, I think a lot of the biggest mistake that I see other mead or your brewery brewery owners make is that they think I will make this and they will come and then especially in the mead sector, there’s just there’s not enough awareness about it. And so before we were starting, he was kind of over concerned about, you know, my product isn’t perfect, I can make you He’s always making more and more batches before we we kind of committed to being commercial, who drink all those batches. And a lot of our friends, our friends and family were starting to fight over who was going to get the last bottle or we scrape presents. Could they get more. So that really helped kind of spur confidence, I think to open commercially. But when we first opened we had this whole marketing plan of how are we going to reach all these customers. Temecula, we specifically chose because of the location because of the affinity for new experiences for all of the tourism that comes here. It’s an amazing wine country, but it’s not necessarily yet known for the quality of wine, it’s it’s more of the experience that people are looking for. And that’s different than a Napa or Sonoma or you name any big wine region in California where people are going specifically for a certain type of wine. They’re not doing that here. There’s actually a big, a big bucket of volume for people looking for sweet wines. And so we thought, well, this that plays right into Mead, there’s already at least a small demand for for what we’re offering.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 8:37
Yeah, that makes sense, like because I mean, Temecula is a wine region as a great diversity of wineries. But if you go back to some of the originals, Wilson Creek and their almond, champagne, and their almonds, sparkling wine, the palette, the palette was there. And also the appreciation for something a little outside of the norm, which I think you guys perfect timing in 2019 is the rise of kombucha and seltzers. And the whole the whole landscape of alcohol really was starting to shift then and he has I think we’re able to play right into that.
Danielle Busch 9:10
Yeah, definitely pray before COVID
Drew Thomas Hendricks 9:16
No, now you have a background in digital marketing. So how did you set up a go to market strategy for your meadery?
Danielle Busch 9:25
I initially set out thinking that so my backgrounds in digital marketing specifically in SEO, so search engine optimization and a little bit of paid search ads so I think I naively thought I will just sit behind a computer all the time and that’s all I have to do a Moses seller and I didn’t realize the face to face component and the the you know importance of having the tasting room so the the go to market strategy that we built we’ve changed a lot from that initial initial kind of thought process. The TC Rome was, wasn’t an afterthought. But it was like, Okay, we’re gonna have this beautiful tasty room, we’ll be able to use it for pictures, and then we’re really going to double down on on online sales. But pre COVID, it wasn’t as easy to break into the E-commerce market. For me at least because it took a while to figure out what are people interested in? Paid search? Like? Because there’s not a huge awareness of me. There’s also not a lot of people, at least at that time, there weren’t a lot of people searching me. Yeah. So
Bianca Harmon 10:32
I was just gonna say, it’s interesting that you say that because here in Napa mead has been popular. For some, it’s been on taps in our wine bars for like six years. So I just feel like it I feel like there’s actually been a lot of awareness and known about me, maybe just in this area.
Danielle Busch 10:52
It could be that area. It’s also I’ve noticed that a lot of bars or restaurants will carry it. But people don’t know, they don’t come in and say I want the mead. They say oh, what is this? Or they want to know what it they’re like, I don’t drink you know, beer wine. What else do you have? I don’t like ciders and other, you know, Quick follow to that. And so they want to know what the so that’s I think what led to the explosion of seltzers. And Kombucha is that people wanted something also a lower, lower alcohol. But in the last year and a half the search volume for mead in the US has grown 60%. So yeah, it’s been a huge, it’s a very, it’s still very niche market. It’s not one, you know, it’s in the top like one eat, I think of all if you break up the wine varietals. But but it’s still, you know, there’s still a lot of room to gain, I think.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 11:43
Yeah, and is that people start getting more aware of it. And they want to try all the different expressions of it, they will have to turn online because it is so regional. So like, as Bianca was saying, up in Napa, and that’s already you’re looking at the upper echelon of like appreciation for alcohol so that they will have it at the wine bars and whatnot. But are they searching for it online? And that’s what you’re speaking to, which is kind of amazing, because even selling wine online via paid ads and via SEO is very, very difficult.
Danielle Busch 12:12
Yes, a lot of competition, a lot of unknowns. But we’ve had some some luck with that, especially after building the brand awareness that we have. And then just the growth in the demand for the for mead in general.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 12:28
Sure. What and then when did your tasting bar open?
Danielle Busch 12:31
Same time, November,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 12:33
the same time. Okay. So that all launched and then promptly COVID hit?
Danielle Busch 12:39
Yes. We are forced to turn online. But it worked out for us because we were doing local free delivery, which no one else was doing. So we kept expanding and expanding our radius. We’ve put I think 40,000 miles across three people’s cars in six months. Oh, wow.
Derek Busch 12:57
Yeah, a lot of growth.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 13:00
Yeah, I think free to free delivery was always big. Even back when I was selling wine in the store, or delivery service. This was in the early 90s was very, very popular. And so people can order it up and then kind of want it shipped onto it. So you see did you start with mead and then go into site? Or did you roll out both at the same time? Same time.
Danielle Busch 13:24
We had I think when we opened we had eight different products to worse hard ciders and six were meads and they were all we had about half dry and half semi sweet. And the as we’ve gone on, people have just been like I want to lick honey out of the chain.
Derek Busch 13:44
So we have more sweeter stuff. Now we’re on the 80 20 on the sweets. What about rye stuff? But what about
Bianca Harmon 13:51
this one though that I’m curious about? It’s the it’s a cranberry orange barrel H I’ve never seen a mead packaging in that in that manner. It almost looks like a spirit bottle versus a mead bottle.
Derek Busch 14:02
Right? So anything that’s in a bottle like that comes from our barrels and we primarily use a spirit barrel is our vessel to hold the mead. Okay, that kind of ties into that why we use the bottle? Oh, that’s
Bianca Harmon 14:16
cool. Cool.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 14:19
Is it that
Danielle Busch 14:20
one semi sweet though it is not.
Bianca Harmon 14:21
I saw that. I saw that on your side. I was just curious because I was like wow, normally I see the Meads almost like a you know a beer bottle top or and that wouldn’t like intrigued me just based off of like the bottle.
Danielle Busch 14:35
Yeah, let’s use lots of different so we have like a black matte type bottle that’s really popular. And then we do some Slim cans. And then we also use these, like ice wine. Oh yeah. I bottles for our sweeter meads.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 14:54
Who comes up with all your designs?
Danielle Busch 14:56
Primarily me
Drew Thomas Hendricks 15:00
Very, very, very good designs. I am. I’m kind of surprised. 80% Sweet 20% Dry is the way it shifted?
Danielle Busch 15:08
Yes, yeah. And it was just, I think one of the things that makes us a little different from other meaderies is that we are hyper focused on what the customer is saying. So even when we’re making something, we’ll let people try it, especially some of our regulars to figure out how they feel about if they think it’s too sweet or not sweet enough. And we’ll make adjustments based on that feedback. And then we always watch it how like, we did this Watermelon Margarita, canned, made, this one is fairly sweet. It’s sold out in three weeks. So sometimes we can kind of gauge like what’s really popular based on repeat buying patterns, and just overall, you know, length of time to sell. But basically, we’ve shifted to that, because that’s what sells the fastest.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 15:54
As far as the honey that where do you source your honey from?
Derek Busch 15:58
So that’s all local SoCal. For the most part, we’re up to Orange County done San Diego, local aprs work with Temecula Valley honey company, who supplies basically all the meaderies down to San Diego. And we’re just one of them. But we all get honey from that guy.
Danielle Busch 16:21
But he filters it for us. So we can use raw honey where you have like pieces of Honeycomb or you have V cards in it. But you know, it’s always nicer when it’s filtered for you.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 16:32
Oh, sure. Now does the different honeys translate to the different style and meads or is the honey just as a base and it’s the yeast and the fruits and the other aspects that create the flavor profile,
Danielle Busch 16:44
the honey so so like I have a couple. I don’t know if you can see the difference in the colours. But there’s, we try to use single bridal honeys. So you have like you kind of see this as darker than what you would see in the store. So we’ll use like a lot of orange blossom or sage blossom honey avocado blossom is super dark and kind of earthy. And so we try to map the bass honey to whatever the flavor profile is. So we have like a, this Vikki me, we use a little bit of meadowfoam. Honey, if you’re that one’s incredibly rare. It’s from Oregon, and it’s from bees kind of pollinating these swamp flowers is how it was described to us. And it has like a cotton candy marshmallow esque flavor profile. And so we try to map whatever we’re making like flavor profile wise to whatever honey we want, you know, to come through, we want those honey characteristics to come through. So we’re, we’re not overheating the honey either, because we don’t want to lose that integrity of it.
Derek Busch 17:47
And this one was this metal foam, we usually get the rare and unique colonies occasionally. But for the most part, it’s from around here. But if we find something that we just can’t pass up like eucalyptus blossom, or metallophone, we tried to snap that up too. Well,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 18:10
and as far as scale, let’s talk about scaling for a second. So your 2018 got a tremendous product portfolio. How do you decide where your growth growth strategy
Danielle Busch 18:21
it’s really forced by circumstance more than Bendis than a, you know, true decision. So when we pivoted to do all the deliveries, we weren’t allowed to be open. And so we had to figure out how to reach all these people how to sell. And logistically how to manage, you know, some of us were doing 40 deliveries in a day. So like, all of a sudden, we have to be as skilled as like an Amazon Prime delivery. And so that kind of forced us to learn how to use logistics systems how to use a website that could, you know, map to the right areas. And
Drew Thomas Hendricks 18:59
we, for your logistics.
Danielle Busch 19:01
We were Mapquest.
Derek Busch 19:05
We were using Road Warrior before, and then we use the another one after that. I can’t remember the name because it’s been like we haven’t done it in a while since we’ve been back open.
Danielle Busch 19:14
So we shifted, we still do quite a few deliveries, but we shifted to leveraging like UPS instead of having to do it ourselves. But at that time UPS wasn’t the you know, the cost ratio of it didn’t make sense. But there’s tons of apps that have free logistics software. So that’s what we were we were trying them out though it didn’t work.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 19:36
And then who do you use to? What do you use to manage your club memberships?
Danielle Busch 19:41
Right now we’re just using Squarespace. But we’re actually in the process of moving to blue, which is a so we’re about to migrate over to Shopify, and they have a company called Bloom that will manage your wine just more effectively than what we have now.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 19:55
Yeah, I’ve heard a little bit about that. We haven’t worked with that specifically. I’m curious to know what you guys think of that.
Danielle Busch 20:02
I will keep you updated.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 20:05
Yeah, so talking about your member talking about your memberships? How, how does that work? And then how do you with such a large product portfolio? How do you decide who gets what.
Danielle Busch 20:17
So we have two memberships. And we were not super keen on doing the membership yet, because there’s just there’s so many pieces of it that we didn’t yet understand. But our customers basically demanded it of us. So we made it happen. So we have a four bottle, Mead, Hive club membership, and an eight bottle hype club membership. So the eight bottle one, they get an exclusive me that nobody else only that club membership has access to. And then we preset what the bottles are for that shipment period. So because of Squarespace, it’s it just builds them every 90 days. So every 90 days, we have to send them a shipment. And we pick it based on what we’re making for that quarter. So we try to pre select at least a couple of weeks before you know that next that first shipment of the for the next shipment billing goes through what we do let them swap out. And so if they want to come into the tasting room, they can swap out for anything that they want. We try to be really thankful for our members. So every time they come in, we usually let them try things that are new, or in the in the different fermenters, they also get 15% off of all their, their purchases in between. We don’t do the free glass, there are free glasses. I know a lot of wine clubs do that to get people to come in, we found that there’s a certain subset of people that like doing that, and they will bleed to both ropery glasses for our members every now we have some people that come in quite a bit.
Bianca Harmon 21:53
So does that mean most of your membership base just based in Temecula? Or have you guys branch? You said you can ship to 40 states? So have you branched out more than that area? I mean, or? Or is it a lot of more local.
Danielle Busch 22:08
It’s about 40%, local about 55%, California and then you have 5% of other states. So we that we haven’t yet promoted. So we’ve been kind of waiting until we moved to this move to Shopify to have more control over our memberships, but we haven’t ever promoted our members. So are our membership in general. So you almost have to be a diehard fan, or to activate rewards people asking about it. So our membership pool right now is pretty small, we have about 150 members,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 22:42
that’s pretty large. No, that’s good. That’s impressive. As far as so that one of the things I like to talk about a membership is the difference between membership and subscriptions. Because something like me, you’re getting, you could drink a bottle in a dinner, and it’s gone. And because I belong to a couple cider clubs, and what I’m constantly wishing that they did was just send me a 12 pack of cider every couple weeks.
Danielle Busch 23:07
We are in the works of having so you know, pending lists, which is supposed to be done by the end of this month. Having a monthly subscription so that you just get built in the beginning of every month, and then you get whatever’s new, that’s probably like four or five bottles so that you you don’t run out as frequently as you do, because most of our members that are local end up coming in in between and buying or, you know, whatever they had during their shipment they liked and they came back to buy more.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 23:37
Yeah, let’s talk about Temecula for a moment, the whole region is really just boomed over the last 10 12 years for sure. What is the kind of I’m gonna take wineries out of the equation for the time being, like the whole craft movement there? Can you guys tell me talk to me about the landscape with the breweries and cideries the meaderies
Danielle Busch 23:58
there’s actually no cideries rules yet, you guys we are the only ones that have fighter made but then there’s nobody that’s like solely cider and was supposed to Yeah. Because especially because we’re so close to Julian there’s no Yeah, no, there’s one hard cider place in Julian, but not in Temecula or even close around us. The brewery market is very interesting. It’s not it’s they’re definitely not tapped into like marketing and trying to grow via acquisition. It’s a lot of word of mouth. And so the breweries that have kind of the biggest followings are the ones that have developed these kind of subsets of different flavour profiles. So they’re just like electric brewing has this just this crazy following for their IPAs, and then you have some of the other breweries are doing a lot of distribution and so people will find them In that way, so like refuge has their blood orange wet and then distributed all across I believe the US
Derek Busch 25:06
fire with their barrel aged their stouts. So every brewery as a specialization kind of,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 25:12
are you getting some overflow with the breweries into your, into your location and your metering?
Danielle Busch 25:17
A little bit, we actually get a lot more overflow from the wineries, from the breweries but the brewery the like the camaraderie between the breweries is really awesome. So people will recommend different places that are nearby people. I’ll ask that ask us all the time, you know, like what, what’s close by and we’ll tell them to go to iron fire or relentless specializes in these like super sour beers. So it’s a cool environment of like, kind of mid level breweries that usually get most of their visibility from word of mouth or their distribution.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 25:50
And that’s very similar to your meadery as well. Now between Mead and cider, is it a is it slated towards mead? Are you selling roughly the same between the two categories?
Danielle Busch 26:04
Definitely more Mead? I would say we we’ve done more. So we just recently started doing sweeter ciders we were previously just doing dry ones. So that has kind of changed the market. There’s been a higher demand now that they’re a little bit sweeter for the ciders, but we use only local apples. So we’ll drive to Julian with the big truck. Get all the apples fresh pressed, come back stick them right in the fermenter fruit so we have a pomegranate and the peach cider and people are going crazy over.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 26:36
Oh, that’d be great. No, I like to I like the Julian ciders. And then Calico cider is also up there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They’re more of a farm. They have a real funky farmhouse.
Danielle Busch 26:47
Yeah. So like, Oh, I love it. Orchard to table.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 26:52
Yeah, talking about kind of the kind of that sours in the native native wildness that you’d find like in a calico versus more of a sweeter in a julienne cider. You’re sitting on the sweeter side. But talk to me about your style of cider.
Danielle Busch 27:09
So like the Calico cider is more of a natural fermentation versus what we’re doing where we’re controlling the fermentation because we personally don’t like the funky, funky flavors. I know. Like there’s raging cider down in San Marcos. And they’ll do kind of a mix of both just whenever they feel like they’re idle, so are all over the place. Yeah. He likes to try everything and gets really excited. He’s trying to I think he’s made a few memes as well. But we will, I guess you you make everything. So I’m just there for the taste testing. But for the most part, you’re you’re controlling how things come out.
Derek Busch 27:50
Right. So we use a white wine nice for our ciders. And that makes them go bone dry. And we’re also doing temperature control to keep them nice and crisp on the flavor without any extra funk or any off asters and aromas. So we go from there, and we decide whether or not we’re going to add fruit to it. Right now we have four different ciders. We have a dry, hot person, and the both of those are dry, and then the peach and farmers sweet.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 28:19
That sounds great. I think that I liked the control of fermentation that I think that’s the key to scalability. Sometimes you stumble upon something, and it’s like, a happy mistake, but you’re never going to be able to redo it due to the so as far as scaling. Is that is that your key to how you’re going to grow the meadery?
Danielle Busch 28:40
Yeah, I think we’ve tried to narrow down to a few different varieties of the mead that we want to scale on. And those are the ones that we’ve started making bigger and bigger batches with. And we’ve started doing some partnerships with other companies where they want to promote it.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 28:57
Oh, wow. Talk to me about that, what kind of partnerships you got.
Danielle Busch 29:01
So we just recently did a partnership with casemates. So they have like a big audience of primarily wine drinkers, but they have a hungry for Mead, where we’ve been promoting some of our, or they’ve been promoting our meads to their audience. And then there’s some other partnerships that are in the works, where they’re going to do the same thing, but on different areas of the country. So we’re really excited about those. But it’s really been just people finding us and saying wow, we love your packaging and your branding and or we ordered your product and we love it or we heard from so and so and so then reaching out to us and saying, Hey, we want to promote you or do this partnership, which has been really, really awesome.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 29:44
That’s great. That’s a great way to get the word out. Now is all your distribution directly direct to consumers or do you distribute through stores and retail?
Danielle Busch 29:53
So we have one retail partner called Crab Shack they’re online we’re about to Go live with another one out of the east coast called reserve bar. And they there, they have a couple of different sites that they’re launching. And then we’re hopefully gonna go live with a, I’m blanking on their name, but to help us with distribution to retailers and restaurants. So we get a lot of requests from like Texas and Nevada and even Washington to be on retail shelves and as well as on on tap at restaurants. But we don’t currently have those. We don’t have a distributor. So we’re just like, we can distribute self distributor in California. But think that’s my next research project. How many cases are you guys producing? A year? Oh,
Derek Busch 30:46
20,000 divided by? I think it’s something like 2000 cases, do 3000. We’re still here. In a year. Yeah. So we’re like micro level.
Danielle Busch 31:00
But we could be bigger. So we haven’t, we’re trying to pace with the demand so that we’re not sitting on a bunch of product or burning ourselves out when we’re not selling it. So we’re not at 100% capacity of our facility yet. We also with those barrel aged ones, those really help expand our capacity, because you can stick things in barrels and you know, they take up space, but waiting on it in a fair manner. So we can scale up to double that capacity, we just are trying to pace with the demand so that we don’t,
Bianca Harmon 31:31
right. So if you were gonna get a distributor involved, you would, you’d probably want to make sure you have enough for distribution purposes as well. Right?
Danielle Busch 31:40
Yes. So our the way that our product works, it takes about two months for a mead turnaround, and about four weeks for a cider or a session meads to like the canned meads too. So if we found the right partner and we were growing fast enough, we could swap out some of our fermenters for bigger for larger and like up to 10x our production in less than six weeks.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 32:02
That’s good. There’s probably some other facilities you could you could work out of, because I’m always neat as a category. I’ve sold it. I’ve had it on the shelves, but it’s it’s one of those categories that would love to see a mean section. But it always seems to get stuck in the cider section or just the lower extra bottoms section. And I think because there’s just not enough meads in distribution, and a lot of retailers. The misconception is well, I’ve already got one on the shelf.
Danielle Busch 32:29
Yes. Or my one?
Drew Thomas Hendricks 32:33
Yeah, just how Chaucer’s mead, you got to actually have a craft meet.
Danielle Busch 32:38
Yep, we do see that quite a bit.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 32:42
So yeah, I think the more more of these like craft metres that come online, and actually get out into the three tier system. It’s going to be a I think there’s gonna be a snowballing effect. Like what like what we’ve seen in kombucha and even the seltzer category.
Danielle Busch 32:58
Yeah, this, the more people who are aware of it, the more that they like it, and they want to try other types and other varieties. So I’ll meet as you know, all meaderies is good.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 33:08
Have you looked at lib DIB for distribution?
Danielle Busch 33:11
I think I believe I talked with them. I’ll write them down. But
Drew Thomas Hendricks 33:16
there’s the other. There’s another meadery We talked with feisty Mead out in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they’re doing some of their discs, or they were looking at doing some distribution with them. But I think they they help kind of make get that gateway into, into actually that three tier distribution. Okay, opens up its own level of marketing, because marketing within the three tier system is far different than the b2c side.
Danielle Busch 33:44
Yeah. I’m learning this.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 33:49
No, that’s, that’s exciting. No, I would, I’d love to see that on the on this on the store shelves. So talk to me about some of the new exciting fermentations that you’re particularly happy about.
Derek Busch 34:02
Um, so the ones that we’re working on right now are pi series of mead. So coming up with the fall, we’re going to be doing apple pie pumpkin pie. We have four more pies on top of that. Oh, fun. And then we also have our barrel age that comes out every fall as well, where we age them for at least nine months in the barrel but before they go in, they’re aged three months, so they’re about a year old by the time they hit the bottle.
Bianca Harmon 34:27
Oh, wow. That’s cool. And so in most of these that will be sweet and not
Danielle Busch 34:33
dry. Yes, yeah. Quiet, because that’s what sells
Drew Thomas Hendricks 34:41
it is No, that’s good. To get a follow up. Follow the follow the palate. So the PEISER sounds interesting and what with all these fermentations doing 100 or so before you came online? I always like to think compared
Derek Busch 34:54
to after we open because we do 52 plus a year now wow.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 35:00
Is couldn’t have had all successes was there one nation that you just Nope, not gonna do that one again,
Derek Busch 35:07
do not ferment watermelon watermelon
Danielle Busch 35:13
fresh, so we we primarily use aseptic fruit in in some cases where we know like stone fruits a really good example if you try to use fresh stone fruit, like think about a peach and how hairy it is on the outside. It just absorbs like things from the air and all these things that kind of sit in your mead and make it funky. So if we do use fresh fruit, we now do this process where we freeze it first. Oh, try and kill anything off. And then we’ll add it to the fermentation and we’ll warm it up a little bit to try and like kill anything else that might be lingering. Because that that watermelon batch he’s talking about it was a home it was like a homebrew experiment. And he didn’t happen
Derek Busch 35:57
I’m not really sure I just dropped a bunch of watermelon and it didn’t it after the fermentation it just kind of was like didn’t have the right aroma to
Danielle Busch 36:08
If you held your nose it tasted great. But
Derek Busch 36:11
if you like watermelons if you didn’t just drink it like that, but
Drew Thomas Hendricks 36:15
yeah, that happens often to me when I’m cooking the My mind just didn’t quite translate to the final product.
Bianca Harmon 36:24
Our watermelons my favorite watermelon and blueberry stuff pretty much figured it out.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 36:31
Then then you doing the fresh watermelon so that that would make sense. Yeah, I’ve never heard that’s a good one. Talking about sparkling versus still are you guys mostly sparkling or going still,
Danielle Busch 36:45
we ever when we flow like during the summer we have a little bit more sparkling than still because people just like the carbonation during the summer. But like the PI series, the barrel series, those are all still just depends on what we’re making and the flavour profile like sometimes will bubble something when we think that it’ll help with the acidity or the balance. But other times there’s just like we do a raspberry Chipotle made, it’s already spicy, you don’t want to bubbles that would be to raise then it
Derek Busch 37:12
attacks your nose because there’s peppers in it.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 37:15
Just the I was thinking about Yeah, you’re right. Now when people come into the, into the tasting room, your boots on the ground experience, what’s their expectation is going to be sparkling or still for them.
Danielle Busch 37:27
I think Ironically, when people come in they sometimes a lot of times they’ll think I’m here for a meet tasting. And we’re like, well we have alcohol so that could be better. A lot of them don’t have expectations outside of like they think it’s going to be super sweet. A lot of meaderies have made a great presence with just like super laggy means so you know you put it in the glass and it’s just like trickling down the sides. And we don’t do we don’t have means like that are like even our sweetest mead is isn’t going to stick to your glass. It’s we wanted to make things that were drinkable that you’re going to drink more not Not that that’s not drinkable, but you you know where you want to drink more than one glass. And so for the most part, even if they come in, we’ve had people come in and they’re like I only like bone dry red wines and they’ll leave with the sweetest thing on our menu. It happens frequently. It’s hilarious.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 38:26
Yeah, I think I think a lot of people they don’t understand what dryness is versus acidity and balance. And they really want a balanced wine.
Danielle Busch 38:35
Yes. And they liked that mouthfeel like when there’s more honey get it just a bigger flavor profile than when it’s you know, super dry and light
Drew Thomas Hendricks 38:44
serving and drinking mead with your with a meal. What’s your favorite combination?
Danielle Busch 38:49
Korean barbecue, and the either the strawberry shortcake mead and for the we do like a pineapple semi sweet. That’d be good.
Derek Busch 39:01
Yeah, anything sweet and eat so I like having hot wings with me. So the hot and sweet really complemented each other. And then you can even have something like sushi and one of our ciders are drier ciders would go to tell people
Bianca Harmon 39:16
like in the wine world Thai food and race lanes, right? So like a spicy Thai food with some made would probably be pretty good.
Derek Busch 39:25
Oh, yeah.
Danielle Busch 39:26
We’re really lucky here because we have access to some really awesome chefs. And we’ve been part of several like outstanding in the field before where they some of their amazing meals with our meads. So that like everybody has like a bite and a mead. So it’s always exciting for me
Bianca Harmon 39:44
and what I mead in food
Danielle Busch 39:45
pairing. Yes, so we’ve been part of different dinners where we were either part of the appetizer course where there’s three different appetizers and we’re paired, or we’ve been part of four course meals where they’ve paired with us or just kind of Like events where they do like a bite with mead or a bite with wine, and we’re one of the baits.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 40:07
That’s a great way to get the word out and get people to actually start seeing it in its natural environment where mead and food
Danielle Busch 40:18
where you might drink it at home. Yes, exactly. So,
Drew Thomas Hendricks 40:24
as we’re kind of wrapping down here, is there anything we haven’t talked about that we want to bring up?
Danielle Busch 40:30
I think we’re just, we’re just looking for ways to get me to more people and kind of, we’re super passionate about it. Hopefully you can tell by chatting. We really love mead. It’s something we discover you discovered. And then we visited 42 Different eateries before we opened ours and just really tasting all these different types and realizing what an incredible drink it is like, it can be so many different things and just getting more people interested in even just trying it i is always interesting. One out of every three customers for us is a repeat so it’s like you can just get them to try and end up loving it.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 41:09
That’s amazing. 40 to 40 zero market research you’re in the trenches, squint 242 meters. See the diversity? What was the big takeaway that you learned there? I
Danielle Busch 41:22
think our biggest takeaway was to lean into the drink and not the environment. A lot of meaderies I think they were trying you know, they’re like the associated with Dungeons and Dragons or with Vikings, which we lean into a little bit as well. But I think there’s a conception that that makes it more fun and it’s almost in an exclusive environment, then it doesn’t appeal to as many people
Drew Thomas Hendricks 41:47
Yeah, I was at, I go to, I live in here in Carlsbad, VISTA area and twisted horns by us and it’s like walking into a hubbardston cool and it was really drinking out of a horn. And that environment is kind of exactly what you expect. If you had a stereotypical thing of what a meadery would look like, and I think I’m loving seeing not that I love twisted horn don’t don’t get me wrong, guys. Don’t kick me out. So I love it. There meads to be diversity just like the breweries and wineries each one has its own feel.
Danielle Busch 42:23
Yeah, exactly Rs Rs is more about like coming it’s a little bit more aesthetically feminine, I guess you could say but we really try to focus on like making the product look pretty and approachable and like our place look really approachable and Instagrammable which has helped us immensely because people take photos all the time.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 42:44
Yeah, no I love I love that. That’s a that’s a that’s a great takeaway is and then is there anything you said not to do?
Bianca Harmon 42:54
Besides making watermelon
Danielle Busch 42:59
watermelon Yeah, don’t forget watermelon. I have a lot of the fruits
Derek Busch 43:03
we don’t ferment anymore. We just try to preserve that fresh fruit character and that’s what you’re gonna get from Allah. Every once in a while with our bone dry stuff. Yeah, those get fermented but we stick to blueberries and things like that, that don’t necessarily get funky. They just become more wine like so. A blueberry tastes mostly like grape wine when it’s fermented. Yeah, the
Danielle Busch 43:25
tannins I would say the things that we don’t do we don’t use concentrates artificial flavors. So we’re any sort of artificial coloring. We don’t use extracts no acid balancing it’s all fruit. Yeah, like a lot of times concentrates will have extracts or additives or preservatives in them. So we stay away from anything like that. The only things we’re putting in our mead are the honey water, yeast and a little bit of sulfites just so you don’t get a bottle
Derek Busch 43:53
in coloring too, so sulfites are used to preserve color and reds and whites.
Danielle Busch 43:59
So it doesn’t oxidize because it’ll lose its flavor profile as well.
Drew Thomas Hendricks 44:02
Keeping everything all natural. I love it. Well, gosh, guys, where can people find out more about you guys and Batch Mead?
Danielle Busch 44:09
Batchmead.com come to our website, peruse all our meads and all of our information about meads and Viking meads and different flavors of meads and all the things
Drew Thomas Hendricks 44:20
they’re available in 40 42 states
Danielle Busch 44:23
Yep. 44 040 State
Drew Thomas Hendricks 44:26
020 My gosh, so batch made and next time we’re in Temecula can stop on by? Yep. Well, I gotta I gotta make a trip up there myself. Well, thank you guys. Thank you so much, guys, for having us.
Outro 44:47
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