Mead Royale
The Mead Royale is our celebration pour for St David's Day: dry Welsh mead and elderflower liqueur in a flute, topped with sparkling wine and finished with a lemon twist. It borrows the Royale grammar, a measure of something flavoured under a rise of something sparkling, and hands the flavoured seat to Wales' oldest drink. Mead was poured in the medieval Welsh courts and praised by the bards; here it contributes honey character without weight, which is exactly what a flute wants. The one rule is dryness. A dry mead reads as honeyed rather than sweet, and the wine's acidity keeps the whole glass crisp; a sweet mead turns the drink cloying by the second sip. The elderflower sits between the two, floral enough to bridge honey and wine, restrained enough at fifteen millilitres to stay a seasoning rather than a flavour of its own. Welsh sparkling wine completes the set if you can find it, but any properly dry bottle serves. Pour it for arrivals on the first of March: it asks little effort, lands light, and is distinctly Welsh from base to bubble.
Glassware: Champagne Flute
Garnish: Lemon Twist Expressed over the flute and dropped in
Ingredients
30ml
The flavoured seat: honeyed, not sweet, which is the whole discipline of the drink. Thirty millilitres carries the entire flute, so the bottle you choose is the drink you get.
15ml
The bridge between honey and wine, kept small enough to stay a seasoning. At fifteen millilitres it connects the two; doubled, it perfumes the glass and buries the mead.
Instructions
Pour the mead into a flute.
Add the elderflower liqueur.
Top slowly with the sparkling wine.
Express the lemon twist over the glass and drop it in.
Expert Tip
Chill everything, including the mead. A flute holds no ice, so the fridge does the work the glass cannot, and a room-temperature mead takes the edge off the wine within a minute of pouring. Dryness is the whole discipline. A dry mead reads as honeyed rather than sugary and lets the wine's acidity keep the glass crisp; a sweet mead turns the drink cloying by the second sip and there is nothing in the build to pull it back. Taste the bottle before you commit to it. Pour the sparkling wine slowly and do not stir. The mead is denser than the wine and folds in on its own as the bubbles rise, and a bar spoon simply costs you carbonation you cannot replace.
Behind the Mead Royale
Flavour Profile
The Idea
The Mead Royale is our St David’s Day celebration serve, built for the toast rather than the session. The design is the Royale move: a measure of something flavoured in the bottom of a flute, sparkling wine risen over it, the same grammar as the Kir Royale and its cassis. This one hands the flavoured seat to dry Welsh mead, and the reasoning is patriotic and practical in equal measure: mead is Wales’ oldest alcoholic tradition, and a dry one contributes honey character at exactly the weight a flute can carry. It is a house serve with no older story attached and no need of one.
The Mead
Honey wine was the drink of the medieval Welsh courts, praised by the bards, and the English word metheglin, meaning spiced mead, comes directly from the Welsh meddyglyn. That is the heritage in the glass.
The modern reality is a quiet revival of Welsh meaderies making dry, wine-like styles a long way from the sweet banquet-hall stereotype, and dryness is the whole discipline of this drink. A dry mead reads as honeyed rather than sugary and lets the wine's acidity keep the glass crisp; a sweet one turns the drink cloying.
Thirty millilitres is enough to flavour the whole flute, which says something about how much character a good mead carries.
The Royale Grammar
Royale drinks share one shape: the Kir Royale lifts cassis, the Mimosa lifts orange, and the frame accepts almost any flavour that can stay out of the wine’s way. What the mead version changes is the direction of travel. Cassis and orange are bright fruit against neutral wine; mead brings fermented depth of its own, so the drink reads less like flavoured fizz and more like two wines meeting, the honeyed one below and the sharp one above. That is why the balance holds at 30ml to 90ml, and why the drink survives an inexpensive but properly dry sparkling wine: the mead is doing more of the talking than a liqueur would.
The Elderflower
The 15ml of elderflower liqueur is the bridge. Honey and dry wine share less ground than you might expect, and elderflower is friendly with both: floral enough to pick up the mead's aromatics and wine-adjacent enough to fold into the sparkle.
It also recurs across the St David's Day serves, appearing more than once because elderflower grows wild across the Welsh countryside and belongs in the same landscape as the mead.
Keep the measure honest. At 15ml it seasons; doubled, it perfumes the whole glass and the honey disappears underneath it.
How to Serve It
Pour the mead first, add the liqueur, then top slowly with cold, dry sparkling wine, Welsh sparkling if you can find it. Express the lemon twist and drop it in. Everything should come to the flute cold, because there is no ice to correct a warm pour. It is an arrivals drink: low in strength, quick to make in rows, and distinctly Welsh before anyone has said a word. Pour it at the start of a St David’s Day evening and let the whisky serves take the later shifts; it also stands in gracefully anywhere a Kir Royale or a Mimosa would, with a Welsh accent.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Elderflower LiqueurA liqueur made by infusing elderflowers in alcohol and sweetening the result, typically around 20% alcohol. It became so useful so quickly that bartenders nicknamed it ketchup, which was a compliment and a warning at the same time.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the mead have to be dry?
What sparkling wine should I use?
What is mead, exactly?
You Might Also Like
Kir Royale
The Kir Royale carries the name of a war hero. Canon Félix Kir was a priest, a Resistance figure who helped thousands escape occupied France, and mayor of Dijon from 1945 until his death in 1968, and he served his city’s white wine with its blackcurrant liqueur at every official reception until the drink simply became him. The Royale is the upgrade that followed: crème de cassis under champagne rather than Burgundy’s still aligoté. It is the simplest great aperitif in the French canon, a measure of cassis in the flute with champagne poured slowly over it and the liqueur’s dark fruit blooming upward through the bubbles. The cassis does everything here, supplying the colour, the sweetness and the blackcurrant depth, while the champagne’s dryness keeps the whole thing standing at attention. The proportions are the only craft involved, and the original Kir on still white wine remains the daytime reading of the same idea.
Mimosa
The Mimosa is equal parts sparkling wine and fresh orange juice, and the equal-parts pour is both its signature and its civilising feature. Half wine, half sunshine, low enough in strength to have three of across a morning, which is exactly what a brunch table wants. It is credited to the Ritz Paris in 1925 and named for the yellow bloom of the mimosa tree. London had got there four years earlier: Buck’s Club was pouring champagne and orange from 1921 under the name Buck’s Fizz, at two parts wine to one of juice. The two cities have disputed the territory politely ever since. The Fizz is older, and the Mimosa travelled further. There is exactly one rule and it is not about the wine. The orange juice must be fresh, and the drink is unusually unforgiving about it, because the wine’s dryness amplifies everything a carton gets wrong rather than covering for it.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits