Lots of Lovely Mead

THANK YOU! We want to publicly thank all the wonderful volunteers who helped us bottle nine carboys of mead yesterday!

Thanks to: fuzzydragon.brighids,tenacious_snail,bdot, deedeebythebay and the four lovely girls from her household, perlandria and her partner whose livejournal name I don't have! You were all amazing!

Since it was raining yesterday, many of these folks spent time sitting in the rain getting soaking wet while they scraped old labels off the recycled wine bottles, then cleaned and sterilized the bottles. Meanwhile, I updated and printed our Rabbit Warren labels, sprayed fix-it on the print outs and was helped in cutting the labels to size. Then folks in the garage room filled bottles from the carboys, corked them and put the labels on them. Half the bottles were sent to our wine closet (yes, we keep our wine in a closet set up with wine racks) and the other half was boxed up ready to "trade" with friends. Then there was cleaning it all up afterward. We celebrated with uncledark making us all a delicious spaghetti dinner.

During all this, we got to taste! As each carboy was opened, a little of the nectar was put in a glass for folks to taste. It was amazing. Some of the best brew we have done! Most batches were drinkable already before even being aged in the bottle! As always, the Ginger-Rose-Vanilla and the Methaglen (made with more than a dozen spices) were spectacular. But the surprise of the day was the Bouquet of Flowers which left an after effect of feeling like you had just been smelling flowers! The Blackberry Cin (blackberry blossom honey with a touch of cinnamon) was subtle and lovely. The disappointment was the Orange Spice which used orange rind. It is too bitter. We bottled it and will age it for a year. It may mellow. The Cherry mead wasn't started until August, so it was predictably not ready yet. We racked it into a clean carboy and set it back to brew until spring. We will start the new blackberry blossom and orange blossom honeys to brew in the spring.

What all this means for you mead lovers out there is that we have Ginger-Rose-Vanilla, Methaglen, Bouquet of Flowers and a few bottles of Blackberry Cin available for trade. The supply is limited. We will be keeping half in reserve for family use and won't bottle more until next Fall. To find out the conditions of trade, please contact myself or uncledark.

Today, airshipjones and I return the carboys and other supplies to storage. Then we head to Santa Cruz for the talk I am giving tonight.