Search the Community

Moniack Mead c.1998 Vintage D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C (5)1920×1601 453 KB Moniack Mead c.1998 Vintage D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C (4)1920×1362 640 KB Moniack Mead c.1998 Vintage D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C (3)1356×2623 643 KB Moniack Mead c.1998 Vintage D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C (2)1321×2623 556 KB image1920×1214 324 KB This bottle is a c.1998 vintage. The original plastic capped cork closure rotted away, and I replaced it with a silicone cork. This is the original color of the mead. I have not been following mead for some years, but I was into mead pretty big in the 1990s. If you don’t know what mead is, it is an ancient, fermented wine or alcoholic drink made from honey. Moniack Mead was made from caramelized Heather honey in Inverness, Scotland. It is a dessert mead on the sweet side. If you like ice wine or German Trockenbeerenauslese, you probably would have liked this. You can skip the next 3 paragraphs if you are only interested in the mead. They discuss travel in Europe in the 1990s. I found out about Moniack Mead while in Europe. (England / Scotland) I did a lot of traveling in the 1990s. I’d could go to Europe for $198 - $325 round trip air in the off season. The hotels were also cheap in the off season and crowds were smaller. I would bring a hotplate, pots, pans and cook in my room. I’d go to one country at a time and lived like a local for a couple of weeks; shopping at the supermarkets and eating in my room. I’d take day trips about. I don’t like to travel changing rooms every day or two. I like comfort, at least as much comfort as my meager budget allows. A couple of times I would cook on the closed toilet lid as the bathroom had the only good outlet in the room to plug my 220v converter in. Think cheap hotel! I’ve never been rolling in money, but I don’t let that stop me. I learned to lock up my cooking gear in the luggage as it was confiscated by the maid in Paris when I left it out. That was on my first trip to Europe around 1990. I would use the ledge on the window in Paris to store my cheese. Kinda like a half-ass refrigerator. It was in a courtyard where the sun did not shine and there was no view. So, it worked fine for that in the winter. I remember buying some nice shrimp at a market in Madrid, Spain. The shrimp still had the heads still on. I took them back to my room and cooked them on the closed toilet. Best shrimp I ever had. I thought to myself, why don’t we have shrimp like that in the USA. Well, lots of great stuff in Europe back then. Cheeses in Paris, Beers in Germany, Delectables in Spain, Halva and sweets in Greece. Maybe things have gone downhill since then, dunno. I stopped going to Europe in the early 2000s. What does all this have to do with mead? Nothing. Just a little hope for the broke crowd to make some of your dreams come true even if on a low budget. Anyway…after writing to the maker of Moniack Mead in Inverness, Scotland, I was told it is not sold in the U.S.A., but it is sold in Canda. The mead maker himself wrote me back from Scotland. He was an old guy that either handwrote the letter or typed it out on an old school typewriter. I can’t remember which. I just thought that he is behind the times either way, as that was the age of the word processor, LaserJet printer or dot matrix printer at the least. Whatever the case, he made fantastic mead! In the letter he told me a little something about how he made the mead and referred me to his agent in Canada, as that was the closest source for Moniack Mead. I made snail mail contact with a guy who worked as the agent for Moniack in Canada. He would ship me half cases of Moniak Mead at 2x the bottle retail price plus shipping. I think they were maybe $12 a bottle in Canda, so I paid him $24 per bottle or thereabouts. On the last case he stiffed me. But luckily his girlfriend made it right, shipping me the last case. I don’t remember if it came Postal or UPS, or what he said were the contents; but it never had trouble getting through customs. I don’t know if you could do that nowadays. This bottle shown here is about 1/4 full. I had a sip today, just for old times’ sake. I keep it as a memento. Surprisingly it is still drinkable after nearly 3 decades, which will be in 2028. And the last 2 decades it has had air in the bottle! Maybe it is like Madeira wine and it only goes downhill so far and becomes fossilized. But I don’t think this is fortified like Madeira. It is 14.6% alcohol as it is. Well, from what I gather, the old mead maker passed on or sold out or retired. The young’uns took over / sold out the company long ago and that was it for Monaick Mead. I’ve had hundreds of meads back in the day. In my opinion, the original Moniack Mead, at its time, was one of the best in the world! Here is what is sold nowadays under the Moniack Mead label. From what I gather it is a dry style mead. The color is much lighter than the original. Screenshot 02-01-2026 16.18.021141×901 65.6 KB Screenshot 02-01-2026 16.18.45673×341 88.9 KB Screenshot 02-01-2026 16.19.56695×341 60.5 KB Facebook Yes Aaron…it was smooth! <><><><> Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

Hello everyone, i wonder if there is someone who knows of rentals or camera owners in Scotland who have 16mm equipment. Arri SR, 416 or Aaton would do it. I'm going to Edinburgh in July for a film shoot but the budget is tight and bringing everything from London is also an issue. Any suggestions or comments would be highly appreciated. Thanks, Arseni

Short Films Wanted! The Edinburgh Short Film Festival has opened it's call for entries for the 2016 edition. The best submissions for 2016 will be included in our short film programming for other festivals across the UK and Internationally during 2016 as well as being screened at the Edinburgh Short Film Festival in October-November 2016. We will also be working closely with our partner festivals and are planning on programming some of our best films from 2015 for the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival in September 2016 and the Sardinia Film Festival in June 2016. We're also programming short film for Edinburgh's remarkable arts festival Hidden Door in May. In addition, we can confirm we'll be curating for Japan's biggest short film festival,Short Shorts in Tokyo and we are delighted to play host to a hand-picked selection of Japanese short film for our 2016 edition later this year. We're also now offering the Rising Star Award for the most promising film-maker with a cash prize, tickets to film festivals, offers of work and the Rising Star Trophy sponsored by the Matthew Martino Benevolent Fund. And if that's not enough, we're also planning lively networking events, Q & A sessions, meet the film-makers, panel discussions and even some live music! Submissions are now open for films under 20 mins (any genre) so get your skates on! EDINBURGH SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

I'm shooting a short period drama in February 2013 in Thurso, Scotland. This is right at the top of the country! I was wondering whether anyone could give me some advice on shooting in such cold conditions. General tips/lessons learned/ dos and donts. I've never shot anything in sub zero temperatures and gale force winds - the last thing I want is to be losing/ breaking a HMI or camera. Just want to be really prepared so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dan