How an Assam honey business turned to mead

During the COVID-19 lockdown, when e-commerce stalled, Assam natives Dhruba Jyoti Deka and Kaustoov Gopal Goswami found themselves facing an unexpected problem. Their raw honey business had hit a roadblock. Forced into their kitchens, in 2021, they began experimenting with foods and drinks using raw honey.

One such experiment was mead. It fermented well, tasted good and, importantly, used up honey that had few takers at the time.

By 2024, the experiment had turned into AS01, a boutique small-batch meadery in Amingaon, Assam. The name comes from AS01, the Regional Transport Office code for Guwahati.

Dhruba explains the roadblock. “No one was willing to pay a premium for raw honey when larger brands sell it at less than a quarter of the price,” he says. “We work with over 150 beekeepers who supply us honey. When the sales didn’t add up, we had to find an alternative, one that still kept us connected to beekeepers, farmers and foragers.”

After a couple of years of experimentation, the duo launched what they describe as the Northeast’s first meadery, crafting small-batch meads using fruits, spices and botanicals from the region.

Speaking about the locally sourced honey, Dhruba adds that the team works with beekeepers from forest areas, particularly around Manas National Park, offering them an alternative source of livelihood.

Supporting beekeepers who depend on forest ecosystems was central to their mission. For two years, the duo refined their recipes, incorporating fruits, spices and botanicals sourced from across the Northeast.

Forest honey, with its layered floral notes, changes with the seasons—multiflora, mustard bloom and litchi blossom each bring distinct flavour profiles. Would that mean the taste of the mead changes with every flowering cycle? Dhruba laughs. “We tackled that problem early on by using botanicals to stabilise the flavour.”

They turned to Assam tea for tannins and depth, and to bhut jolokia—the region’s fiery ghost pepper—for heat and character. The aim was not merely to produce an alcoholic drink, but to create something that tasted unmistakably of the Northeast.

Once their mead was ready, the duo approached the Assam Agriculture Business Grow Lab, where their honey venture had been incubated. The idea of mead was well received and they were given the go-ahead to bottle it.

“By then it was already 2022, and our mentors understood the challenges of selling honey,” Dhruba recalls. “That’s when the real work began. Having the product was one thing; the mead we made in our kitchen needed its own space, licences, paperwork and inspections.”

By 2024, they had set up their factory in Amingaon.

For now, AS01 is bottled in standard wine bottles, though the team plans to shift to high-grade aluminium as a more sustainable option. The mead has already been showcased at cultural events such as the Ziro Music Festival in Arunachal Pradesh and the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland. The brand is targeting an April launch to coincide with Bohag Bihu.