The Chattanooga area’s first meadery, Flora de Mel, is now open in Rossville, along with kitchen-in-residence Calliope.
Made with fermented honey, mead is considered the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage and its popularity in the U.S. has grown exponentially over the past few decades. The number of commercial meaderies nationwide went from 60 in 2003 to more than 450 in 2020 – a 650% increase – and more than 200 more meaderies plan to open over the next two years, according to the American Mead Makers Association.
Chattanooga developer Jay Martin and his wife Stephanie, a ceramic artist and sculptor, began their venture to open Flora de Mel in 2019.
They took up beekeeping in 2015, and as entrepreneurs the couple had been thinking about how they could turn the hobby into a sustainable business. After visiting a small meadery in North Carolina, they started educating themselves about mead and set up a home test kitchen.
“We would put the kids down and nerd out,” Stephanie Martin said.