When Mike Manning made his first batch of home brew in 2001, he thought he had found his calling. Beer, however, turned out to be a stepping stone toward his ultimate beverage of choice—mead. In 2009, using a recipe the American Homebrewers Association published for Mead Day, he concocted his first batch of the honey-based alcohol. These days, he uses modern tools and his mastery of fermentation to craft The Colony Meadery’s many styles of mead, which range from his original mojito-inspired recipe to dry, herbal and barrel-aged varieties. The meads are available to sample at The Colony’s in-house tasting room, the tasting room in the Moravian Book Shop (one of the world's oldest continuously-operating book stores), and various taverns throughout the state.