Our Saga

The Twisted Horn Epic Saga: The birth of a legend

  Long ago in a land far away, a boy chose the life of adventure. It was a decision to leave the ordinary behind for a life full of the extraordinary limited only by the extent of his imagination. Many a day was spent gathering his friends and heading off on quests and fantastical journeys.

  One day after a successful campaign, he and his party, wary from action, stopped at a road-side inn. The bar keep offered him a strange drink. It was something unknown to him, something called mead. This strange brew was similar to beer and wine, but different. He noted that cost-wise mead fell between beer, ale and wine; beer cost 5 coppers, ale 1 silver piece and wine cost 10 pieces of silver. But this mysterious libation known as mead would cost 5 pieces of silver. So what was this thing called mead? He had no idea, but in his mind, if it costs more than beer and ale, it must be pretty good.

  When the boy grew into a young man, his continued to thirst for adventure led him to leave the imaginary world behind and join the US Navy, thus traveling the real world instead. Eventually, as fate would have it, he made his way over to Norway to work hand in hand with the Norwegian armed forces. During his time in country, he was occasionally faced with the question of “what do I do with my down time”? Well, the logical answer was to seek out the local tavern, get a hot meal, perhaps an adult beverage and interact with the good Norwegian people. Little did he know his life would take a twist on one fateful day. As he entered the establishment and looked about, lo and behold, there right before his eyes was the word Mjod (mead), and it was for sale! What was once an unknown word in a book had appeared before him and he was all of a sudden that little kid again, off on one of his adventures with pockets full of silver coins. Suffice to say, more than 5 silver pieces were spent on mead while in Norway.

  Upon his return to the United States, he was dismayed to learn that the golden elixir was not to be found. Ever resourceful and determined to recreate that beautiful libation that haunted his dreams, he attempted to craft his own mead but with little success. This failure coupled with the military way of life, always on the move, made it impossible to make good mead and the dream faded away.

  Many years later he felt something stir within him, something from the past. This awareness grew, substantiated by a string of strange events that would prove to be, in no uncertain terms, life altering. For instance, one day he found himself standing in the path of a swarm of thousands of bees. Rather than run for cover, he simply stood there...captivated by the mass as they buzzed around his body until the eventually departed. Some time later, the well intended owl nest box that he placed in his backyard was hijacked and occupied by a still existent bee colony. Then, one day, he and his wife (Robin) were in their backyard discussing what the next chapter in their lives might be, when he noticed a worker bee at his feet and realized that she was close to the end of her life. He picked her up to bear witness to her final moments and without provocation he received her sting, yet strangely enough, it did not hurt. Instead, he felt that she shared her last life essence to him for a reason, at that moment he had an epiphany and that was to crystallized his resolve to craft and enjoy mead once again. 

  Mead mania filled his mind as he tracked down and consumed all of the books and articles on mead that he could find. Ingredients were sourced, equipment was purchased and the first batch was made. After a painstakingly long wait it was ready, and it tasted of his memories. Soon thereafter the closets, bathrooms, the garage etc. were filled with bubbling fermentors as he worked on developing dozens of recipes. Friends and family raved about his hand-crafted mead and encouraged him to take it to the masses, and finally with Robin’s approval, the journey would begin.

  His first step was to join a local home-brew club and bring his offerings to the group for continuous assessment and feedback, and it was good. The next step was to accompany his brew club to larger events to get a feel of what an unbiased general public felt about his results. Frankly, he was stunned at how well it was received and for the first time he thought to himself that he might actually be on to something. As good as it was though, mead is unfortunately all too obscure a beverage for today’s consumer and would present quite a challenge with it’s promotion to the public. Then it hit, why not incorporate hard cider into the model, cider has a large fan base and it is much more recognized by the public as a whole, not to mention that cider has its own amazing history that also needed to be shared.

  The next step was to figure a way to distinguish themselves from the rest of those out there doing the same thing. For instance, most meads that one will find out there are between 12-20% alcohol by volume and either bone dry or more often, very sweet. He then thought to himself that here we are in North County San Diego, aka beer Mecca, why not make products that might be better received by a population used to lighter and more refreshing libations? Why not offer beverages that were lower in alcohol, lighter and cleaner, more off-dry in style, and slightly carbonated? The answer, why not? The decision turned out to be a sound one and the award winning Twisted Horn was born, the rest is history.