We were lucky to catch up with Jackie Robbins recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jackie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I’ve always been obsessed with flavors and fermentation. My husband Josh (also co-owner) and I have always dabbled in fermentating beer and wine. Like most people, I actually never knew what mead was until Josh introduced me to it. As we sought out various meaderies, I learned how versatile mead could be. It’s the perfect canvas for carefully crafted flavors. While we were living on the east coast, Josh had volunteered to make a batch of mead at a local meadery and was encouraged to purchase a kit to make our own mead. That kit came weeks before the country shut down for COVID. So here we are, stuck in a 850 square foot in downtown Washington DC with nowhere to go. So I dove deep into mead making. Within months I had read books, joined Facebook groups, watch YouTube videos, and listened to every podcast I could find about mead making. Almost 100 gallons of mead in a few months created quite the traffic jam in our tiny apartment. As I shared it with more and more people, the feedback was consistently great and the thoughts of having a meadery one day began to take shape. The more we discussed the idea of a meadery, the more I knew that back home in Southern Illinois was the perfect place. Growing up on the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail, I always wanted to be a part of it. It’s a beautiful area with rolling hills, hiking, tons of lakes for swimming and fishing, orchards, small town festivals and a dozen wineries within just a 30 minute drive. I’ve always been a resident and tourist, but I never thought I would be a business owner. I wasn’t a grape grower or a wine maker. But mead would fit in perfectly! Tourists from all over come to the SHWT in the spirit of tasting wine. We would be the perfect addition as the only meadery in Southern Illinois! So we roped in my best friend, Michelle, whom I met 22 years prior in Marine Corps boot camp and started looking for property. 4 years later after years of planning and building, we opened our doors to Honey Heist Mead Co to the public.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
The one thing that makes us unique from other meaderies is that we focus on Midwest fruits and flavors. We know that most people have never tried mead before. So sticking to familiar flavors was important to allow guests to make good decisions about which meads they would like best. We also forage local ingredients like pawpaws, persimmons and sumac. It’s fun to wildcraft!
Have you ever had to pivot?
We originally had planned to open our doors in 2030! We planned to buy a small plot of land, build a giant tasting room and have thousands of bottles of mead packaged and aging for years before we opened. What actually happened was we purchased 12 acres with a giant house that we converted into a short term rental because it was the perfect location on the wine trail. This income allowed us to convert a detached garage into our production facility and temporary tasting room. We were ready to open our doors in 2024!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
We LOVE our community! Between the small business incubators, chambers of commerce, tourism agencies and local influencers, we hit 1000 followers in a matter of months on Facebook. We have so many amazing repeat customers that love to bring new guests to our tasting room. The other wineries have been so supportive and consistently send people our way that are looking for something new or different. We also have Southern Illinois University and Southeast Missouri University in our community. So we’ve created a special monthly event called Mead and Musings where local professors give fun and interesting lectures on a topic they are passionate about while guests listen and drink mead. It’s been a great way to bring people in that may not have heard of us otherwise.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://HoneyHeistMeadCo.com
- Instagram: @honeyheistmeadco
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/honeyheistmeadco
