Business owner Crystal Milburn hopes that her business receives some additional exposure after Prairie Bee Meadery appeared in an episode of a national TV program.
Jenn Sharp, a Saskatchewan-based food journalist, featured the Moose Jaw-based company during the fourth episode — which focused on honey — of her docuseries, Flat Out Food. The program aired on Citytv on March 17 and will air again on Saturday, March 20 at 10:30 p.m. Saskatchewan time.
Saskatchewan-grown ingredients go from field to plate with the help of host Sharp and some of the province’s top culinary minds as part of this multi-part docuseries.
The repeat of Flat Out Food’s episode four can be watched at www.citytv.com/video/live/ or on the Citytv app.
“It was really nice to see (the episode). The (TV) crew did an excellent job. I know they were excited to get their cameras inside the beehive. That was really awesome to watch, to see all the bees up close and personal,” said Milburn. “It brought back some really good memories of sitting down and having some delicious foods drizzled with honey.”
Sharp and her team came to Moose Jaw last summer to film the episode over two days. She and Milburn focused on wine tasting, while Milburn had Sharp help start a new mead in the winery. That new wine will be released in April.
The Saskatchewan-based journalist commented that she had a new respect for what goes into making the mead, considering it is a “sticky job,” Milburn chuckled.
While Sharp was in Moose Jaw for two days, not everything that was filmed appeared on TV since the 30-minute episode also featured two other businesses. Yet, the conversations that made it on TV focused on from where mead comes, the genesis of the company, how it has grown during the last five years, and the business’ future plans.
This was not Sharp’s first time visiting Prairie Bee Meadery, Milburn said. The food journalist is a fan of the business and wrote a story about it for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix in December 2019. The meadery was also featured in Sharp’s 2020 book Flat Out Delicious.
“It was really nice to see her out again. She likes the mead, as do we,” Milburn chuckled.
Honey can be used for many things, such as creating mead, which goes into the wines as a fermenter, she explained. Every batch of mead that the company contains hundreds of pounds of honey.
Using honey as an ingredient is not as easy as sugar, Milburn continued. Refined sugar is easier to work with since it doesn’t become stuck to clothes or get in employees’ hair. It can also be challenging to use when it’s cold, as the honey can harden and require staff to liquify and dissolve it.
“We’ve certainly had some experiences where we’ve had to wrestle with really hard honey, which is not fun,” she continued. “But the end product is worth it. It tastes so good.”
Milburn hoped that appearing on the TV show will create more exposure for the business, help build brand awareness and educate others about what the company is doing.
Prairie Bee Meadery recently moved its retail store to the Grant Hotel. Milburn noted that the business plans to work with the hotel on a project this spring that will feature tours of the hotel, discussions about the community’s history, and cocktails using locally made craft liquor.
