Saving The Mead
So, in late 2004, I was a perhaps over-enthusiastically Wiccan meadmaker, and I vowed to make a batch of mead, appropriately flavored for each of the Sabbats. Time passed, layoffs happened, and I started all eight of those meads. But, when you're putting in ~80-100 hours per week looking for jobs and applying for them, there might not be time for bottling.
Time passed, I learned things about meadmaking, and I slowly went back to those old meads, sampled and bottled, or tried to come up with adjustments to save them. (Except for the Imbolc mead. The carboy for that one -- my first rose petal mead, waah! -- slipped off its handle and shattered on the basement floor.) Some time last summer, I added some honey to a multi-fruit mead that I'd somehow thought appropriate for Ostara.
So, today I was in the basement, and I sampled that old mead. It had been dry, harsh, and perhaps over the hill. Today, the fruits in the mead were unidentifiable, but it was at the peak of intense flavor -- the time of perfection, from which any further change can only be for the worse. It's bottled, now -- 60 and 2/3 bottles (the fractional one will be consumed this weekend).
Now, if only I could find the note I'm pretty sure I made on how much honey I added. You see, the next mead -- designated "May Wine Mead" on the label -- needs a bit something . . .
Time passed, I learned things about meadmaking, and I slowly went back to those old meads, sampled and bottled, or tried to come up with adjustments to save them. (Except for the Imbolc mead. The carboy for that one -- my first rose petal mead, waah! -- slipped off its handle and shattered on the basement floor.) Some time last summer, I added some honey to a multi-fruit mead that I'd somehow thought appropriate for Ostara.
So, today I was in the basement, and I sampled that old mead. It had been dry, harsh, and perhaps over the hill. Today, the fruits in the mead were unidentifiable, but it was at the peak of intense flavor -- the time of perfection, from which any further change can only be for the worse. It's bottled, now -- 60 and 2/3 bottles (the fractional one will be consumed this weekend).
Now, if only I could find the note I'm pretty sure I made on how much honey I added. You see, the next mead -- designated "May Wine Mead" on the label -- needs a bit something . . .