Dave Lindblad and his wife Christa both work in the medical industry, for now – Dave in insurance billing and Christa with Banner Health, in their training facility – but they are already pursuing their next endeavor, to bring a new attraction to downtown Miami.

At 413 W. Sullivan St., once occupied by Coleman Tax Service, the Lindblads are in the process of opening a mead production and tasting space named Meading of the Minds.

For those unfamiliar with mead, Dave Lindblad explained that it is “essentially a honey wine. Whereas in regular wine you’re using grapes or fruit juice, mead is just the addition of honey to water and yeast.

“There are about a zillion different types,” he added. “If you add fruit or coffee or peppers, it all changes the name but the basic ingredient is just water and honey.”

Dave Lindblad, whose grandparents lived in Globe most of his life (“We spent practically every weekend in the Cobre Valley,” he said), has been making mead since December 2022. “It's kind of a weird story,” he said. “My buddy who lives in New Jersey was a brewer; he was talking my ear off about mead, because he wanted to do some home brewing. Finally I just got fed up and said, 'I'm going to do it.'

“So I went and got a little kit, made our first batch, and fell in love with the process and the product. We just started trying different recipes, getting bigger and bigger batches until finally we had so much positive feedback we said, 'Let's try and make a go of it business-wise.'”

Finding a location has been the Lindblads' biggest challenge. After hunting unsuccessfully for a space in Mesa and their current hometown of Florence, Dave and Christa found the historic building on Sullivan Street, with its vintage copper ceiling and stained glass front window, through David Huber, owner of the Miami Rose antique store. “The stars just seemed to align, and we snapped it up as soon as we could,” said Dave. They obtained the space July 1 and applied for their liquor license July 22.

“It’s been a hassle trying to find a spot that fits all the codes,” Dave said. “We’ve tried looking at small spaces and big spaces and it’s always come down to something wrong with the zoning. Now that we’re in this place, that’s what got us the ability to start with the licenses. That was our biggest hurdle, and now it sort of feels like all downhill from here.”

The Lindblads are hoping to open their meadery by year's end or the beginning of 2025. “It's kind of an involved process, because as soon as we get the okay to open we’ll have nothing that we can do until the first batches are done,” Dave said; a process that takes between 60 and 90 days.

Christa said that, once Meading of the Minds opens, she would like to set up a “wine-taking tour” from Superior through Globe. “My vision is to make something like a postcard that has each tasting room – so Superior has Bruzzi for wine tasting, us for mead tasting here in Miami and then Waggin' Vineyard in Globe – to help get people from the Valley interested in coming out here for wine tasting and also all the antique stores and food.”

The building's back room will be their production area, and one of their hopes is to be able to give tours. As for making the mead, Dave said it was fairly simple. “One person can technically do it, as long as they know the recipe and there's nothing super-heavy to lift.”

Up front, in addition to the tasting room the Lindblads would like to carve out a space for artists, town events or produce vendors. “I want to keep the front flexible for anything the town has to offer, like when Miami Loco happens or any time they want to open up the town,” Dave said.

When their meadery “opens and takes off,” the Lindblads would like to ditch the 45-minute commute and make Miami their home. “I also like Miami more than Florence as a place to live, because everybody here is just friendly. It's actually a community, whereas in Florence nobody really knows anybody on this level. I do want to get here as soon as we can,” said Dave.

“It’s just been a dream come true to find a space this size in a historic district. I don’t know what else I could have asked for,” he added. “I just want everybody from the Valley to come out and see the history here before it’s just completely forgotten.”