Superstition - Amante

Amante by Superstition Meadery is their mead Safeword aged on coffee, cocoa nibs, cinnamon and chiles.  It is a yearly release available online and in their tap room for $48 for a 750mL bottle.  It is 13% Alcohol by volume.  

Amante is a Gold Medal winner at the 2016 Mazer Cup International.

For background, the base mead is Safeword, Safeword is Superstition's bourbon barrel aged mead with Belgian Dark Candi syrup.  So Amante cranks Safeword up to eleven by adding coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, and chile to the mix.

The easiest way to describe this mead to anyone familiar with craft beer is: Hunahpu.  This is the mead version of Cigar City Brewing's beautiful cinnamon, cocoa, and chile imperial stout, Hunahpu.  

This mead pours a very rich, dark ruby. It's dark and near opaque but still has beautiful clarity.  
The nose is this bouquet of aromas.  You get hit with honey sweetness, candy, coffee, cinnamon, bakers chocolate, rum soak dates.  It's just this explosion of richness to it.  Just on the nose and appearance you know this will be a decadant drink,

The taste is wow.  Much like the Coffee Marion, Amante takes a tasty base mead and elevates it to another level.  All the flavors are there, the coffee, the honey, the bourbon, the chile, the cinnamon. 
 However it is so well balances that none of the flavors overpower.  They all are beautifully balanced to create this extremely rich, dark, flavorful drink.  It's damn near like drinking a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout.  So if you're a fan of that style, this is the mead for you.  
This is a very lovely mead and worth seeking out if you are a fan of the flavors described above

Superstition - Safeword

Safeword by Superstition Meadery in Prescot Arizona is a mead made with Belgian dark candi sugar, that that used in beer such as stronger Belgian beers like dubbels and tripels.  This mead was also aged in bourbon barrels.  This mead is available in 750mL bottles and retailed for $36, when it's available.  

The Commercial description from Superstition is as follows:

This craft beverage is seductive and full of surprises. Safeword pushes the limits of liquid gratification as Honey and Belgian Dark Candi Syrup are tied together and then disciplined in a Bourbon Barrel until they are released for your pleasure. Enjoy the adventure waiting for you within this bottle and remember, don't forget the Safeword.

This mead is rich, it's rich in color, aroma, and taste.  The color is a dark dark brown, very similar to a barrel aged barelywine, bordering on stout level opaqueness.  The aroma is beets, candied dates, figs, and coffee.  The taste follows pretty closely with the aroma, lots of dark, rich fruits; figs and dates.  There's also a candied sweetness that might be the honey just elevated by the candied sugar.  There's also notes of leather, a bit of smoke and char, and some earthy, woodsy qualities to the taste a well.  This is a big mead.  Something that would be sipped nicely next to a fire, maybe with a cigar, on a cold winter night.  It reminded me a little bit of the Swedish mulled wine, glugg.  Something enjoyed around the winter holidays with friends and family.  

B.Nektar - Dark Dark Goose

What a cool, fantastic mead from B.Nektar.  Dark Dark Goose is a coffee mead aged in bourbon barrels, then aged a second time in a Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout barrel.  

There's a pretty interesting story behind this mead:  The inspiration was the big stouts that B.Nektar loved to drink, so a coffee mead was made with the help of a local Ferndale, MI roaster, Chazzano in 2010.  The blend is 75% of a Nicaraguan french roast and 25% of a Yemen full city roast.  The honey profile is 50/50 wildflower and Buckwheat. The coffee mead was then put into a Heaven Hill barrel for 11 months.  Then in 2011 their co-founder Brad drove his car to Chicago to pick up a just emptied Bourbon County Stout barrel from Goose Island, which he then drove back home to Michigan on this roof.  They then aged the coffee mead in this barrel (purportedly still with some BCBS still left in the barrel) until the summer of 2012.

This mead is a limited, one-time release in 375ml bottles.  Released at Summer Mead Fest in the Summer of 2012.  It was originally $25, limit 6 bottles.  The bottle count is estimated at about 500 bottles.

I thoroughly enjoyed this mead.  The intensity of the coffee was mind blowing considering the bottle I drank was 4 years old.  There was no sign of coffee fade or green peppers.  The sweetness of the honey was nicely offset with the spiciness of the buckwheat and oaky/spiciness of the barrel. There was a huge roastiness that was both bitter and smooth at the same time.  This mead is top notch, and I loved the chance to try it.  If you ever come across a bottle don't hesitate to jump on it, it's one of the best coffee meads I've ever had, and drinking fantastically.