We Make What We Love
Our meadery in the Sinnar region of Nashik, Maharashtra, produces authentic meads with an emphasis on Indian flavours.
The quality of our meads is of primary importance to us. We believe in a philosophy of ‘farm to bottle’, and in line with this we treat all our raw material with utmost care, be it the honey, fruits or spices. We carefully preserve them and extract the natural flavours into a bottle of Cerana Mead, handcrafted with love.
The Cerana Story
Every great love has a story behind it. Ours is a story that blends many passions.
When our co-founder Yoginee learnt about meads she was intrigued not only by its rich history and diversity but also because mead brought together her myriad interests. It was a marriage of her love for nature, her fascination with the honeybees and her appreciation of alcohol.
Unable to find the drink locally, she experimented with making some herself. After her initial experiments were appreciated by friends and family she toyed with the idea of setting up a meadery.
She knew just who she needed to help her achieve this and reached out to her friend and fellow Ph.D. scholar, Ashwini who was finishing her post doctorate in Canada at that time.
Ashwini was always enthusiastic about creating innovative, value added products from agricultural resources and had a love for wines and spirits. She jumped at the idea of this unique and exciting venture. She traded in maple syrup for honey and thus began the journey of Cerana Meads.
Our Co-Founders
Dr. Yoginee Budhkar
Dr. Ashwini Deore
We take pride that a majority of our manufacturing set up is sourced locally within the state of Maharashtra, thus minimising our carbon footprint.
We source most of our produce from within the state as well. The jamuns, pomegranates and grapes are all sourced locally.
The honeys are also sourced from within the country. Lychee honey comes from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Jamun honey from Maharashtra and adjacent states. And multifloral honey comes from Himachal and Karnataka.
We take pride in only buying our honey which is collected only from what is called the “super chamber” of the bee box, at a premium cost, The super chamber is where only surplus honey is stored. Cerana’s meads are certainly not made from honey that is stolen from the bees.
The entire cooling system at the meadery is automated and optimised to minimise the consumption of electricity and uses environmentally friendly coolants. The tanks in which the mead is fermented are insulated to slow down the temperature loss which is energy saving.
Water wastage through the RO water plant is minimised and effluents that are generated go through extensive treatment. The fruit waste or processed pulp generated in the mead making process gets converted into compost. The treated water and compost are used for gardening. at the meadery thus minimisiing water loss and maximising resource utilisation.
In our effort to support a sustainable practice and promote organic and environment friendly products and services we plan to collaborate with like minded lifestyle brands and help them reach a bigger market hand-in-hand with us.
We invite local artisans to exhibit their art and craft at the meadery. Exhibitions will range from beauty products, to fashion, to nutraceuticals, to foods, to paintings… all the while making the process fun with a few pints of our meads.
