White Winter Black Harbor

Brewed by White Winter Winery
Style: Mead
Iron River, Wisconsin USA

Holy shit this is fuesel! Aroma is alcohol, dull red fruit, and vodka. Smells like a bum eating cranberries. Taste is vodka-infused, herbal cranberries. Finish is cloying, slightly burning, and sweet. Tastes pretty nice in some aspects, but this needs to burn off some alcohol. It’s like Apis Jadwiga and Night Train Express had sex. Speaking of which, I need to kill the rest of this bottle and go home to beat my wife.

October ‘09 O-Town Throwdown, courtesy of hopscotch. Pours reddish. Aroma of honey, astringent is very forward, lots of currants. Flavor, brandy barrel, black currants adding a pronounced astringent mouthfeel.

Bottle… October ‘09 O-Town Throwdown!… First off, this is red-hot mead. Lots of ethanol in almost all facets - the aroma, the finish and my brain. At 21% ABV, I expected it to be boozy and wasn’t proven wrong. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll focus on other aspects… there aren’t many. Black currants… and lots of ‘em. The aroma and flavor are both straight-up black currants and heat - less heat in the flavor than the nose. Also, like black currants, the flavor is tangy and tannic. Medium-bodied and astringent with a dry, chest-warming finish. Bottle courtesy of Skyview!

Tasted at Otown Throwdown courtesy Hopscotch. Reddish brown pour. Huge currents and barrel aroma. Taste is tart berries, honey and some alcohol burn. Really balanced and awesome.

Courtesy hopscotch. Looks like cranberry juice. Rich honey and tannic currants with a bit of cough syrup and plenty of booze. Full body, viscous. Too hot and too medicinal.

What an awkward mead. Good looking beer, dark amber hue, alcohol legs = huge on this mead. Once you taste it, you will know why. Its still retains a good amount of sweetness for how alcoholic it is. Its truly interesting. Pretty good tasting - a little strong for my ABV wise, but still pretty darn good.

Rating number 2400 (and number 100 on the Outciders list) if I can figure out how to open the wax on this bad boy! Huge thanks to tytoanderso for this gem and some of the other white winters! Pours thick, like a port, but a darker and slight brown tinge to the otherwise red hue. The alcohol legs on this thing are monstrous! Huge and thick, stuck on as if by glue. Tons of alcohol on the aroma, but a not nasal burningly so. Currant berries that are a bit bitter, honey, vanilla, wood tannins, a bit of butteryness, raspberry, grappa. Taste is thick and soothing with a lot of berry, oxidized brown sugar, vanilla, wood, port and a decent amount of burn to remind you of the 21% ABV. Long, long, long duration that keeps evolving, with the currants and oak tannins taking a strangle hold on the honey wine. Now I am ready for another sip, yes, alcohol, and then rich jam and Madeira notes, brown sugar and vanilla oak, but still surprisingly low residual sweetness; not even remotely close to being cloying (like many detractors of Jadwiga can claim). Definitely thick and supremely alcohol, but not as viscous as one would expect on a mead of this alcohol (grain spirits are added which may cut this quite a bit). Deccadent, and pretty good. This stuff will get make one merrily smashed. Love it!

Mor maroon in its color than the balck, same nice wine like appearance. Smells even sweeter I’d have to say cherry in it though from the aroma not currant and a light wood note. Great full well coated palate. Tastes like a PORT sweet sugars a little currant, a big warm swallow. Deliciously port like & I love port!