2006 mead bottled

Well, what I thought was going to be a fairly sweet mead is finally in the bottle. I started this batch in October 2006. About 40 days in primary ferment, another 60 days - more or less - in secondary and then two years ageing in the carboy.

Final product? 30 bottles of a very dry mead. It's so dry, I was worried it might have gone to vinagar, which would have been okay except, what would I do with five gallons of honey-vinegar? It's drinkable and I can even think of a few dishes it would go well with.

The nose is slightly acid with floral hints of alsike, which tells me where the bees gathered nectar for the honey. I'm looking forward to drinking this over the next two or three years to see how it changes in the bottle. And I still have another carboy of mead, started immediately after this one finished its primary ferment - and using yeast-sludge from this batch to innoculate - is still waiting for bottling at the future date. I wonder how that one will turn out?

I'm ready to start another batch. Not sure how to go with it. I now have about 20 bottles of slightly-chocolate sweet methaglin, 24 bottles of sweet raspberry, and 29 bottles (I'm drinking one now) of this dry straight mead, plus the batch waiting in the carboy. Michelle thinks I should go for a blueberry, but blueberry doesn't come into season until late summer. If I start a batch of blueberry, now, I have to use store-bought frozen blueberries and I really don't want to do that. I'm not very satisfied with the chocolate. Perhaps I'll get some better ingredients and try that again. Still, blueberry sounds awful yummy...