Kinsale Mead Co

About the company

Kinsale Mead Co was founded by Kate and Denis Dempsey in 2016 to rediscover the ancient art of mead making and create a delicious, refreshing new Irish drink. They lovingly hand-craft each batch with care and passion and source the best natural ingredients.

They make their meads in Kinsale, in the first new meadery in Ireland in many years. The inspiration for their meads also reflects the rich tapestry of trading and maritime history in Kinsale and its stunning location at the start of the Wild Atlantic Way.

Their Atlantic Dry mead is made from raw Spanish orange blossom honey fermented off dry to finish at 12% ABV with a lovely citrus flavour and a long lingering finish. Their Wild Red mead is made with Spanish honey, sweet cherries balanced with zesty Wexford blackcurrants creating a lovely fruit flavour with a hint of honey.

Kate and Denis also run tours and tastings at the meadery in Kinsale where you can learn about how mead is made and its fascinating history.

Key Sustainability Commitments

Honey is what makes mead unique from other drinks and it is where we are going to be putting a lot of our efforts.

Raw Material Sourcing

We want to ensure that all of our honey comes from sustainable sources and that we can source a percentage of our honey from Irish beekeepers.

Promote Biodiversity

We also plan to work with the local community and college on initiatives related to bio diversity including pollinator friendly planting programs, education on the challenges our honey bees are facing and the benefits of using local honey.

Promote Local Community

We are also going to use the opportunity with our meadery tour to educate people on these activities and raise awareness on what it takes to create a sustainable environment in our community.

Reduce Energy Use

Finally we have already done a lot to ensure our mead making process and meadery has a low energy usage and a very low waste footprint and we will continue to improve on that over the coming year.