Bramble wine
I've been more productive than usual over the past couple of days. I now have a big bowl of purple goo sitting on the kitchen counter. Eventually, hopefully, this will become bramble wine. I'm making it with frozen blackberries (now thawed of course) that I found at the Giant Eagle. Scott and Judy (his mom) are both skeptical about the source
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I think a lot of people are discouraged by that kind of snobbery. The truth is, brewing is fairly easy and can be as inexpensive as you want it to be (within reason). I grew up on hillbilly mead, brewed in common plastic milk cartons with ordinary baker's yeast and nothing but a balloon over the top of the carton for a makeshift "fermentation cap". It wasn't prize winning stuff, but after a couple mugs it began to taste pretty good.
I'm not recommending plastic milk cartons or baker's yeast or balloons, I'm just pointing out that you don't have to convert your spare bedroom into a small laboratory or worry about having the perfect yeast, or the perfect honey or whatever. You do have to accept that some of your meads and wines will be absolute crap no matter the quality of your equipment or ingredients, but rest assured that this happens to the most talented brewers.
I suggest you check out Mead Making for the Rank Beginner. (I'm not saying you're rank, that's just the title of the article.) It gives a fairly good description of how to brew mead without having to pawn your left testicle for supplies. Just don't get obsessed with making a perfect batch the first time. You wouldn't expect somebody who'd never approached a stove to prepare a perfect, seven course gourmet dinner, would you? First you start out burning a few grilled cheese sandwiches...
Which is a very good argument for not investing a small fortune in equipment until you have some vague notion of what you're doing.
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