With 5 gallons of Medium Show mead made, I was able to split up the batch to experiment with flavors. Yesterday, I finally bottled up the last of it and now I am taking the time to write up a recap of the experience.

The mead was made from raw local honey that I bought from an apiary. I probably could have bottled it all without the flavor experiments but the thought of limiting my options was unappealing to me. At last count, I have 4 different flavors.

  • Oaked – Conditioned on oak, it tastes like a Chardonnay
  • Blueberry – Added blueberries to the secondary, has some port notes
  • Chamomile – Fresh flower picked from my sister-in-laws garden. Too early to tell
  • Medium Mead – Plenty of honey flavor

The first three were all conditioned in gallon bottles, which gives you four full 750 ml bottles. I had two gallon of the unflavored kind that I bottled for later drinking and competition.

With all these flavors, now I can have a Catalina Wine Mixer.

One upgrade to the mead project was using bottles that could be corked, which also meant using a floor corker. Mike bought a very nice one and it you are looking to buy, purchase a high end model. I don’t have experience with a cheap one, but the more expensive one was worth every penny.

I think I will add a few of the medium show mead bottles to see if they change over time. Maybe the corked bottles will allow them to age differently from the ones I capped a few years ago.

Floor Corker Meads

Mead making is very easy as compared to beer brewing. Yeah, it is more expensive. Yeah, you may need to buy some new equipment to cork bottles. These are valid points. Another valid point is the fact that mead making gives you an chance to expand your skill set and can be pretty rewarding with some planning and some imagination for some flavor additions after fermentation.