This was my first attempt at making a Mead which is a fermented honey beverage (also called a Honey Wine). I made a version based on the famous "Joe's Ancient Orange Mead" which is a mead spiced with Oranges, Clove, and Cinnamon. It is fermented with bread yeast, which has a lower alcohol tolerance than wine yeast, in order to leave a bit more sugar (wine yeast will typically be able to ferment mead all the way to 1.000).
I started out a bit higher than spec on OG (1.120) and ended up fermenting down to 1.036 which is 11% ABV but still pretty sweet. I let it sit in the fermenter for about 10 months to mellow. It has been in the bottle for about a year and a half at this point. It was bottled still and has remained still which I'm pretty proud of.
This is a really good recipe to start with as it has some really bold flavors and makes for a tasty mead. One could play around with the spicing level quite a bit. The cloves are a very nice pairing with the mead (3 cloves per 2 gal makes for a very bold flavor) - coriander would also be very nice I think.
I'm excited to finally be doing a tasting.
Tasting Notes:
- Aroma:
- Honey and Clove dominate. Also get quite a bit of fruitiness which may be the honey or yeast maybe. Some orange may come through faintly. Very rich aroma - the other spices may be in there but mingled too much in the background
- Appearance:
- Light gold and very clear.
- Flavor:
- Sweet. Has a very firm spice flavor in the middle - clove, honey, and a bit of orange. There is a pretty strong alcohol bite in the finish which helps balance a the sweetness. Really strong flavor
- Mouthfeel:
- Medium bodied and a bit sticky from the sugar. Drinks pretty smoothly but best consumed in small quantities.
- Overall:
- Very boldly flavored with a pretty nice complexity. Potent at 11% ABV but hides that very well - probably a combination of the long aging and the residual sweetness. Not a beverage I find myself reaching for on a regular basis but it does make for a nice after dinner drink on a cold winter night.
