Mead tends to taste like rocket fuel until it's a year old or so, then something magic happens and it gets better and better. A lot of people make their mead sweet - like a dessert wine, or even sweeter. Ick. I don't like that at all, so I make mine bone-dry. It's roughly the same as white wine in alcohol content. To get this, I just mix honey and water in a 1 to 4 ratio, and ferment it to completion. That's all. Dry mead tastes kinda like white wine, but different - less fruity and more subtle, and floral. I like to describe it like this : sugar is sweet, and honey is sweet. If you take all the sweetness out of sugar, there's nothing left. But, if you take all the sweetness out of honey, what's left is the flavour that's captured in a good mead. The flavour should be like the difference between honey and sugar.