Wedding Mead

It was a beautiful day in April, as the love of my life prepped to walk down the isle.  My niece and first cousin once removed (what an annoying way to refer to a cousin's child) were clogging up the aisle.  Just moments before they were so happy to play with the rose petals, and now that they had to actually do it, they froze and threw off the timing.  But you aren't here to read about my wedding and romance, this is about mead!

Terrapin Bluffs Mead made its first public appearance at my wedding (well, larger than serving to only a few people at a time).  I served the basic JAO recipe and a modified JAO made with blackberries and blueberries, each scaled to 5 gallons so there was enough to go around.  We served both as parts of the toast, to rave reviews from all of our guests.  

As part of the process, I developed a special mead label to signify the occasion.  We used a sunset paper cutout as the central design element for the wedding, so I thought it fitting to place it smack dab in the middle of the logo.  I still kept the TBM logo around, but rotated it and shrunk it to take second place behind the importance of the day.  We used appropriately colored ribbons to glue the logo to the bottles, giving it the final professional appearance.  

From the tasting notes, most of the wine-drinkers preferred the blackberry variety, although as a general rule the majority of the wedding preferred the traditional, unmodified JAO.  We were just happy to serve the mead, and have everyone with us for our wonderful wedding.  It was so great having all of you involved, and hopefully there will be more mead for all the guests come Christmas!

Time Flies...

Already two months since my last post, and I've barely said anything about mead.  Summer's are busy, but they shouldn't be so much that I can't write about something I care for.  I've got many ideas for new posts, and am dwindling in motivation to put pen to paper (fingers to keys may be more appropriate).  So, I'm going to post a public to-do list, and hope maybe in the coming weeks I'll get around to actually posting about everything.  I'll even update with links as they are completed.  I do this as my wife stares at me with those wonderful eyes, full well knowing she's thinking "Yeah, right..."  So here goes, the list of topics:

1. Our wedding and the meads I served (link),
2. The Mazer Cup, and the scores of the meads from the wedding,
3. The American MeadMakers Association (AMMA),
4. The dwojniak in primary, the only mead I've made in the last few months,
5. A note on buying kegs when you know nothing about the topic.  Shame on Midwest Supplies for offering 'as-is' kegs for cheap.
6. And finally a post on that most sacred of ingredients, the honey itself.

That seems like a good start.  With any luck, I'll be finished by next year...