The Drinks: Lion City Meadery
Tell us all about Lion CIity Meadery (LCM)
We’re Lion City Meadery and we specialise in an alcoholic beverage brewed from honey called Mead. It’s widely accepted as the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage and it’s been making a comeback for the past decade. The taste is kind of difficult to describe as it’s quite varied. Push to shove, I’d say it’s a bit like a Moscato D’asti and cider hybrid.
We highly recommend people try it for themselves!
Who are the people behind LCM?
LCM is actually just 2 people. Sanjay Jegatheesan is the head brewer while I, Justin Herson, handle the business aspect of the company. When we’re not going around drinking stuff, we can be found making more stuff to drink. Well, that’s the impression we generally seem to give off lol.
How did it all start?
I’ve known Sanjay for a good number of years prior to LCM. He used to be my sound and lighting guy when I did the band music thing. We opened for Dragonforce when they did a set at Pasir Ris years ago. He was instrumental to making us look and sound great.
Anyway, Sanjay had been homebrewing for the longest time and wanted to ask my opinion about going commercial. We did some due diligence in 2018 and the rest is history.
How did the pandemic affect you guys?
We lost out on 3 years of business opportunity. It was like Rip van Winkle after his infamous nap. That was very costly for us as we had planned on working on export markets when the “Circuit Breaker” was implemented. We also couldn’t work to build on domestic markets for obvious reasons. Every single one of our clients went into survival mode and because majority of our clientele were bars, we lost about 80% of our revenue overnight. Being a newly minted FnB manufacturer also meant that we were in that weird place where we don’t qualify for majority of Government support. So we hunkered down, put on our blinders and focused on working with our existing clientele to make sure they survive. Even if that meant extending credit, debt forgiveness and being pressured by our landlord and banks. It was brutal but I’m glad we stuck it out and made it work. I’ve never really acknowledged this, to the fans that helped wipe out all our Chrysanthemum Mead stock during the “Circuit Breaker” period, know that those sales helped so many businesses survive. I’m going to take this opportunity and give a big “THANK YOU!”.
What are some goals for the brand?
We’re looking to: a) take up a bigger presence in FnB restaurants, both big and small. We’re already with NBCB as well as Michelin-starred Labyrinth. We are food lovers as well, so our longstanding philosophy is that our meads should be versatile enough to pair with any cuisine without taking any attention away from the dish. b) explore and expand the usage of mead in cocktails. c) improve access to our meads so that our fans have an easier time. While we’re currently available across the island via bars, bottleshops, and supermarkets, there are some parts of Singapore that we need to increase availability in. d) export regionally.
Last but not least, what are the best memories with the brand?
Beerfest Asia 2019. Sanjay and I were down with 38 deg fevers and tending the booth while being coked out on antibiotics.
4 days of major suck turned into awesomeness because there was so much love from the craft beer community. Everyone kept sending food over.
Winning our first 2 awards at Beerfest was the cherry on top.
