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)