Zombie Mondays
The B. Nektar Meadery, which is based in Fernadale, Michigan, offers a variety of Halloween themed goodies. Among them is Zombie Killer -- a hard cider made with apple, cherry and honey (what can I say? I liked the name).
We had a conversation with Miranda Johnson, the head of marketing for the company, about the flavor.
Q: When did your company begin brewing Zombie Killer? Where did the ZK idea stem from? Obviously, there are at least a few zombie fans in your company.
A: We began making Zombie Killer in 2011 by request of a restaurant account in North Carolina called The
Cherry Blossom. They wanted us to do a lower alcohol draft product with cherries. Since cider was in
season at the time we decided on making a hard cider with honey and cherries for them. Once the batch was complete, we called our distributor in NC to let them know the product was ready for the Cherry Blossom account. Unfortunately, they had gone out of business so we were stuck figuring out what to do next. This was the first product with a fancy name and artwork. Obviously we have some zombie fans here and one of our employees was reading The Walking Dead graphic novel (before the show started). He suggested we name it GRrrHaarrhUrrgh (mimicking what a zombie would say) but we decided on Zombie Killer since it is easier to pronounce.
Q: How many other flavors do you have? Any vampires, ghosts or werewolves on the beer/mead/cider list?
A: We have a taproom with 22 taps right now, all pouring different products of ours. Not all of them are bottled and available in the market, but some are. A lot of our taps are new R&D products that may eventually make it to the wider market. As for the creepy things on our list, we do have a vampire themed product called Black Fang, a blackberry clove mead. Other creepy things include The Necromangocon, which is inspired by the Evil Dead movies and is a play off the book the Necronomicon.
Our current releases are Devil's Juice (a smoked pineapple mead with chili peppers) and an extra limited side project, Don't Fear the Carolina Reaper - Devil's Juice With More Cowbell (Carolina reaper peppers added to Devil's Juice). Noghoswerewolves (yet).
