For the first stop on our Year of Exploration, I took Chris on an adventure to Aesir Meadery in Everett, Washington.

Now, you might think I’m being a bit dramatic when I call it an adventure, but bear with me here. Aesir Meadery is tucked away in an alley in downtown Everett, behind a small strip mall. There are no signs to tell you where it is. We only found it when the door opened to let out the visitors before us.

Once you’re inside, it feels a bit like someone’s garage. Part of the chaos is temporary — owner and mead maker Erik has recently acquired new tanks and everything’s in a state of flux as he rearranges the shop to make room for everything and get new batches of mead brewing to keep up with customer demand.

A sign over the bar reads “Mead Hall” and the shop is decorated with Erik’s wood carving projects and woodburned rune gifts from friends. Despite the clutter and chaos, it’s cozy. It feels like hanging out in a friend’s workshop, shooting the breeze and trying mead-based experiments.

And oh, the experiments we tried. I’m used to mead flavored with fruit and maybe some spices like cinnamon or vanilla. But the first mead Erik poured for us was infused with Ethiopian coffee.

Remember how I don’t like coffee? I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this mead. The process of infusing the coffee in the honey wine means that it tastes more like how coffee smells than how it usually tastes. We also got to experiment with warming the mead in a hot water bath, which changed the flavor profile.

Over the course of our hour-long Groupon tasting, we got to try a variety of mead, from traditional mead that had just been started a few days ago, to a Haitian spiced mead with a strong pepper flavor. Erik answered our questions about where he gets his honey and fruit with enthusiasm and fun stories. He also told us about the mead maker community in general and how much it’s grown in the past few years.

We brought home two bottles of mead, one of a sweet, summery strawberry mead and one of the coffee mead. Those were the only two flavors Erik currently had in bottles. His traditional mead tends to sell out on the day he makes it available, and the special flavors disappear almost as quickly. I’ll definitely be joining the legions of fans who stalk Aesir’s Facebook page for announcements, especially since he mentioned an upcoming series of tea-infused meads.

I feel like this was a good way to start the Year of Exploration. Now to figure out the plan for the coming week…