I noticed a leaning towards meads that are sweet and exotic with a high alcohol content, Peanut Butter, Thai Iced, Pumpkin Pie and Bannana Cream to name a few. These are all planned for at least 16% abv when finished, and bottled in Tenth (375ml) gallon bottles.
Not that I don't make plain ol' straight foreward table mead, stuff for every day. Mainly my interest is in Dessert Mead and tring to create something the taste of which will pull people from the coma, daily life puts us in.
Anyone else tend to make or plan, one style or type of mead more so then other's.
I've been all over the map in the time that I've been making mead. At this point I'm working on traditional mead recipes, and incorporating winemaking techniques, processes and procedures. I've made everything from beef jerkey mead to walnut mead, and some meads that were just . . . wrong. But to me the most challenging mead is a basic mead. There are other exotic meads that are very good, and taste different than anything else and that's great, a little break from the basic is always a welcome thing.
In my estimation, the most challenging is a basic mead because there is nothing in it that will mask or cover any shortcomings in the mead itself. No fruit flavors, or heat from chilis, or grape juice or anything else that will cover the faults or off flavors in the mead. I love making melomels, meths and others, but the most challenging is basic because it is so hard to make it perfect every time.
I've made everything from beef jerkey mead to walnut mead, and some meads that were just . . . wrong.
Hey, it's the kind of mead you come up with when you have to take vacation time or lose it, and you're up at 2:00 AM thinking "Hmmm, this beef jerkey tastest awesome, I wonder how this would be in a mead?"
Some of the other just "wrong" meads were things like Chocolate-garlic, Maple-tabasco, carmelized onion, black truffle-sour cherry, etc. Those of course were in the eighties when things like that sounded good, after one . . . maybe two glasses of Jack with a Coca-Cola backer!
Some of the other just "wrong" meads were things like Chocolate-garlic, Maple-tabasco, carmelized onion, black truffle-sour cherry, etc.
"Pour me another...and super size it!!"
I am currently testing a batch of orange/carrot and would like to try a sweet corn batch. Has anyone had success with corn mead before? I found this thread here http://www.gotmead.com/smf/index.php/topic,1126.0.html, but no results listed.
How about a Bloody Mary mead for brunch?
I used to make a lot of straight sparkling meads. I always felt that mead worked really well as a sparkling beverage and thought that it was an under represented catagory.
I used a teriyaki beef jerky which ended up giving my mead a very salty taste.