You have Sake? Hmmmm. And by now prolly some mead too. Plus a whole bottle of ouzo. I just bet you have those amazing pickles as well. ... Now I'm hungry, and thirsty.
Damien - Do you get headaches from anything other than the Bunratty? You might have an issue with sulfides. The specifics on Bunratty - It's not my personal fav, don't really care much for the aftertaste. It's what is known as a pyemet (not sure if I got the spelling right). They blend wine grapes with honey to make their mead. Dihm - I'm fond of the bees one myself. Lemme know how you like it.
Bea's Sweet micro-review: No. Not a fan, weird almost sour apple aftertaste that I find very unpleasant. Wife took two sips and handed me the glass. Edit: it grows on me the more I drink it. Much less sweet than the last one. Still not my favorite. Edit 2 - The Expansioning: The more I think about it, I'm not sure where I got the "apple", I should have just said "grape". It reminded me very much of a sweet white wine instead of the more honey flavor found in my previous bottle. There seemed to be almost no middle, it went straight from a very slight honey taste at the start to the very grapey finish in a split second. The finish seemed to linger, not leaving the impression of sweetness or honey, just a strange "sour" (that's the only way I know to describe it) taste. Not sure if it is a coincidence, but I ended up with a bit of a migraine last night as well before hitting the sack. Only had 2 glasses or so. May have just been happenstance. We'll see after I finish off the bottle tonight.
So I'm trying to find any place in central Mississippi that sells mead and not having much luck...now I want it more than food and sunshine. Damnit. Got some friends contacting their SCA contacts so hopefully.
Bunratty Review: My god. It's full of stars! Maybe not stars, but it's full of fucking delicious. A pyment you say? So it's actually a grape wine with honey back-added instead of fermented? I'm not 100% on all my terms yet. Immediately you get the taste of honey and... flowers? It isn't the same sweetness that I found in Oliver Camelot Mead. While the Oliver wasn't syrupy, it was NOTICEABLY more sweet. I attributed that to the higher alcohol content, which would imply that the yeasties went to work a bit harder on the sugars, leaving less of it and making it more "dry". To me I found this to be just about perfect. It has that initial punch of sweetness but it doesn't coat your mouth. I found the finish to be very mild, and perhaps this is one area I would have liked to see improved. No taste really lingered at all for me, I guess I'd call that "crisp"? The higher alcohol by volume, while noticeable to my wife when drinking it, did not produce a "hot" taste. It wasn't harsh or overpowering, just slightly noticeable to her very sensitive palette. Myself I didn't notice it a bit, and this stuff WILL get me in trouble at some point. I could chuck this down without any issue. I restrained myself and merely sipped in a dapper manner however, as I have a stupid job that required waking up for. So far we have: Oliver Camelot mead - my wife's favorite and quite tasty. Bea's Sweet - Bleh, but it grew on me. Bunratty - yum yum gimme some. Fun fact, my wife's maiden name is Medynsky, which is derived from the word for honey in Ukranian. The implication being that somewhere in her past were bee-keepers.
Grape juice and honey fermented together, I'd imagine. Not sure how exactly they make their booze. Adding sugars after the fermentation process has taken place is a risky business. A secondary fermentation could occur (unless you add that stuff that kills all you yeasties, but I forget what it's called off hand), which would leave off flavors or possibly even create bottle bombs if they ferment in the bottle... which is how champagne is made. I'm not an expert on secondary fermentations, I just try and avoid them myself. Glad you liked the Bunratty. I liked it more than Chaucers when I first started drinking mead, but these days I don't particularly care for it for some reason or another. I also haven't really enjoyed anything from Redstone. I'll be bottling my stuff in about a week, and will post about it when I'm ready to ship it to any interested parties.
I enjoy the fact that Bunratty doesn't linger much. That's my main complaint about Chaucer's to be honest. Too much of a cloying aftertaste.
When I was learning to make hooch, what the teacher told me was 'what one guy will swallow and love, the next will spit out in distaste'.
got home from the road after 19 months and went by the local craft beer store, seems Chaucer's can't be had lately so ended up with the only thing they had. Thankfully it was Bunratty so I have that going for me. Going to hunt around and see what others I can find while waiting for the better half to get in next weekend. Granted after buying two packs of beer and a bottle of mead I could have been well on paying for brewing my own, seems I'm destined to do it.
I do wonder some times. Life as a survey pilot can be a bit annoying to say the least, our normal season is October to May for when the leaves are off the trees until the first heavy snow then we go south through mid winter until the spring where we race the between melting snow and budding trees back north. Summers tend to be specialty projects and disaster assessment work. Now that I have 5 months off I am itching for beta so I have something to do other than brew my own mead/beer and build/spend all my money on my cars and bike.
Don't. If you look at the reasons why fruit and spices were used, it's to cover up bad and off flavors WAY back when. Wine grapes have to be done right in order to get the flavors right, so what it boils down to is from an artistic stand point, Bunratty is superior. You have to take into account the wine grapes of that season, as well as the pH of the honey and the wine grapes, ect ect ect, to get a consistently good flavor. Maybe I should try this years Bunratty.
To be a purist is to submit yourself to bland flavoring. Honey and water alone is a bit of a let down.
I beg to differ! After our wedding reception one bottle of Chaucer's was gone from it's case and the two cases of the honey and water I made were empty.
