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Big mead day! I bottled two batches and started three new ones.

First up: the London Fog mead is finally done! Turns out the way to get the tea flavor to come through was to just drop an infuser with a few grams of loose-leaf tea into the mead and letting it sit for a few weeks. Adding brewed tea just wasn’t enough, but it’s probably still worth doing since …

Next: a weird experimental mead I’ve named “Bocheted Capsicumel”. It starts with a bochet—a mead brewed with caramelized honey and beer yeast—and then I added vanilla, cinnamon, oak, and the other title ingredient: morita chile peppers.

It’s very dry and beautifully complex. The cinnamon mostly comes through in the aroma, and the flavor is mostly vanilla and caramel. I was worried I’d have to sweeten it, but the oak rounded off most of the rough edges, and I like it dry!

Oh, and it’s a little spicy! Nothing too crazy, but the peppers make themselves known.