Our first session, in which we sipped and discussed Pinot Noir over IRC, was a success.
At the end of last session we all decided that our next destination would be mead. thenewgreen passed me the torch for session II, so I am officially kicking it off.
I have never had mead, so I am particularly interested in this one. I've heard that it is an acquired taste. Also a couple of hubskiers have actually made it before, so hopefully they will be able to join us.
So, procure your mead, and be ready to imbibe on: Monday March 3rd, 10PM EST
I will create a post earlier that day, and we will gather on IRC at that time.
_refugee_, mk, b_b, insomniasexx, flagamuffin, theadvancedapes, humanodon, cW, wasoxygen, zebra2, ijustcantanymore, ecib, Meriadoc, lil, cliffelam, sounds_sound, cgod, kleinbl00, elizabeth, pseydtonne, istara, steve, OftenBen, zebra2, coffeesp00ns, flagamuffin, BrainBurner, codingvagrant, kevinf311, ButterflyEffect, forwardslash, backslash, givello, briandmyers, thenewgreen
Let us know if you'd like to be added or removed from the list.
Does anyone have any recommendations for mead? These are the available meads at my local Total Wine:
Well I just finished buying a bottle of Chaucer's because a) I'm poor and b) the selection at my shitty local liquor cellar involved three options. Also apparently I have to heat the Chaucer's on a skillet while soaking the spice bag that came with the bottle, and that's really cool.
I'll be joining you in the Chaucers. So you plan on adding the spices?
Thanks for picking up the torch. kleinbl00, didn't you mention that you and your wife used to make mead? Any suggestions on good ones to pick up? briandmyers, I know that you just finished making a batch, in a perfect world we'd all be trying your mead. I'm excited for this one as I've only tried mead once, years ago and don't recall it at all other than as a novelty. If baby hasn't yet arrived, I'll be there.
Auckland-area hubski people, please contact me if you'd like some of mine to sample - I've got heaps. Just over a year old, so not really at its best yet.
It's kind of ridiculous how expensive it is to ship anything overseas from here. Takes 2-3 weeks typically too. Cheapest option is to tuck a bottle or two in a traveller's suitcase, so - come visit NZ, y'all :-)
Sweet meads will taste mostly of honey. I much prefer bone-dry meads. I like to describe the taste of a good dry mead like this : Honey is sweet and sugar is sweet, but if you remove all the sweetness from sugar, there's nothing left. If you remove all the sweetness from honey, however, something is left behind, and that's the taste captured in a good mead. The delta between honey and sugar.
That seems to leave a lot of good options here in Michigan. Mead is at the bottom. My cousin is also making some from her own mead, which has aged just about 1 year, I think. I'll try to get some of that to compare.
B Nektar Meadery is delicious. I highly recommend their Evil Genius, which they call an IPA style mead. I have a shirt with the logo on it actually. Hardly an IPA, but when I had it my palate was pretty much in tatters. (Frankenmuth Bier Celebration)
Unfortunately I will not be partaking tonight. (I had the Pinot Noir the last time, but wasn't near a computer to join the IRC) I scratched my cornea last week, and it's since upgraded to a corneal ulcer, so with the two antibiotics and the Vicodin that I've been prescribed, alcohol is a no no. Drink on hubski!
Alas, I am closing on Monday night. Enjoy!!!
Hmm. I wonder where I can find mead out here. This should be an interesting journey to find some. Wine stores maybe?
You could make your own honey some water to taste.
add a bit of yeast put it in a pressure vessel (2 liter coke bottle works).
wait till it gets hard (the bottle you pervert) a few hours works. chill it. open it carefully. If you wait too long it will be mead. Usually a few days. drink up.
Wolfram Alpha to the rescue! In short, 2 pm Tuesday, March 4.
My first thought was to Google it or for a site that would do it for me, but I've recently I've been looking at WA more as a possibility for the next Google. I get the feeling from some of the emails I get from them that they're looking to head this way.
I do love DuckDuckGo. I actually have them as my homepage, and back when I had a Palm Pre I wrote a way to get DDG into the phone's Universal Search. I believe they even use WA for some queries, which is awesome.