Who needs another hobby? Not me. But here we are. I’m micro-brewing mead.
Blueberry mead, to be specific. You can make mead at home with just water (distilled), honey, and yeast (which naturally occurs in raw honey). It’s one of the oldest alcohols invented, and apparently, hopefully, it’s very difficult to mess up. According to my research, which includes a zombie-apocalypse cookbook and several blog articles from the brewing internet, even if your brew goes terribly wrong, you still end up with safe-to-consume vinegar. Even mold that might occur on the fruity, herby bits can simply be discarded and the rest is still a-okay.
I’m starting with a blueberry mead because its August, and I have access to many cheap blueberries that I handpicked myself. Mead is neat because its very easy to infuse fruits and herbs into the mix to get some really creative flavors. Plain mead is still totally cool, and alcoholic, but I think flavored meads to counteract the sweetness make far superior drinks.
Start-up costs were under $100 for some airlocks, funnels, mason jar spouts, and jars–which–were actually really hard to find and not totally in my possession yet. We’re apparently in a national mason jar shortage because of course we are, and so I’ve hopefully got more half-gallon jars on their way to me in the mail, which, as you know, is also a hot mess right now. Once I have more jars I intend to start several more batches of the herbaceous variety since my herb garden is doing so spectacularly.
I’ll let you know in like 8 weeks how it comes out, and if anyone has any tips on making mead at home, please drop a comment.
