“Malka is the first traditional mead I have made.

When anyone would ask my grandfather why he started to make mead and wine, he would often reply with “I was haunted by the sweet smell of mead fermenting in barrels.” I don’t blame him. It’s an aroma that is truly glorious and unparalleled with a majority of other fermentations. After the first mead I made with my grandfather in 2017, I understood his notion of feeling haunted. 

In all honesty, I became extremely curious and borderline obsessive while researching the history of Polish mead. In December 2020, about three years after I made my first pyment (honey fermented with the juice of grapes) with my grandfather, I decided it was time for me to prove my research and create my first traditional Polish mead using the same practices of heating the honey that my grandfather taught me (our secret family recipe). 

I was so worried that the mead was not going to turn out well that I left the mead in barrels, untouched for about 18 months. Avoidance at its finest until one day I developed the courage to try it. 

This mead was beautiful. In fact, it won an international award and many state and national awards. For a product that seemed so simple to produce, it was complex with beautiful flavors. I thought about my grandfather who actually enjoyed drinking traditional meads but decided to not produce them commercially. This mead made me wonder what my family’s meads tasted like in Poland. They had to be similar. After a trip to Poland in 2023, I was able to confirm it. 

I decided to name this mead Malka, after my great-great grandmother, Malka Löw. To our knowledge, Malka was the first person in the Löw family to own a meadery—a female owned honey winery in 1870 in Poland. So, it was only fitting that as the first female mead maker for my family’s winery in the United States, I would name a mead after the woman who started it all. I hope you get to enjoy it.”

More about The Löw Meadery

Part of William’s testimony of survival that was recorded by USHMM:

“The only time I went to the cellar or to the winery is to see the process of making wine, how they were stirring the wine and to smell the wonderful smell that still persists in the winemakers. They were there, of course, I recall we had a winery that took space a whole block because that whole block used to belong to us. Underneath in the cellar under the whole block was the whole winery. I recall that barrels where the wine was stored for aging was stacked four or five barrels stacked high. They were smaller. They were not the 55 gallon barrels which is the common size here in the United States but I recall they were maybe 35 gallons. This was the standard barrel at that time to age honey wine. I don't recall how long they were aging but that smell and that wonderful aroma contributed from the honey it was still there.”