5 bottles of strawberry-cardamom mead

Mead update: ‘What Calls And Is Answered’. Freya’s strawberry cardamom mead, 5 bottles. This one is looking to get aged for a long time, got the potential to be a 5-star.

Beer bottles of “Roma Invicta” chocolate/raspberry/blackberry mead.

Mead update: Double-batch of “Roma Invicta (Rome Victorious)”. Desert-wine sweet, but, well, victory is sweet, right? Chocolate, raspberry, and blackberry. Started handing them out to the team tonight; all of the parents and coaches got personalized bottles with name and number on the back.

9 bottles of blackberry mead

Mead update: Lamfada (blackberry/blueberry/sweet corn/sage), aka the little mead that couldn’t wait. 5 full bottles, 4 small ones. Great purplish-red color, complex flavor. Not sure I could do this again if I tried.

6 bottles of Chainbreaker hibiscus rosehip mead.

MEAD UPDATE: 6 bottles of Chainbreaker (hibiscus/rosehip), hoping to salvage a 7th once the dregs settle again.

Lamfada (blackberry/blueberry) is in secondary after telling me it wanted to be MUCH different than I’d intended.

Starting on Imbas (hazelnut/oat chai).

Mead update: Raven's Hope (cherry) went in too early, keeps trying to pop the push-top corks.

Chainbreaker (hibiscus) is filtering in preparation for bottling. Yay!

Lamfada (blackberry/blueberry) was a comedy of errors. Fermentation in 4 days, closer to beer than wine. Hopefully ages out well.

Raven’s Hope cherry-cranberry mead

Mead update: Raven’s Hope (cherry-cranberry) is bottled. Predicted 8 bottles on the dot.

Flavor is AGGRESSIVELY fruity. Hopefully aging smoothes the edges a bit; otherwise a little water works wonders.

Mead update: Chainbreaker (hibiscus/rosehip) is brewing. Using a different nutrient this time, so we’ll see how it turns out.

Mead update: Scoundrel is all done, 7 bottles. Smoky, tannic, hint of vanilla.

I’m, uh, running out of bottles. 🤣🤣

Mead update: Raven's Hope (cherry/cranberry) is in the pipeline.

Okay, apparently it's time to get my glasses checked - my hydrometer doesn't even reach as high as what I'd initially read it as, so 27% is *literally* impossible. Likely more like 18%, which is still at the upper limit, but *much* more reasonable.

Mead update: first rack of Scoundrel; once it’s settled enough, I’ll rack again and cold steep the tea. It’s going to need it - assuming my readings are right this is a whopping 27.5%. 😳

Thing about weather throwing off active sensors - it really doesn’t take much on a back-country road to make the road invisible to sensors but still super-clear to humans. A light dusting of unplowed snow will obliterate the lines for a robot, but it’s still reasonable for a human to drive in.

5 bottles of mead

5 bottles of the pomegranate-blood orange mead, and probably another half-bottle once the dregs settle out. Gonna call this a success.

Mead update: Plain mead finally settled out, got 2 bottles. Fig mead is also in 2 bottles, needs a *lot* of aging. Pomegranate mead is settling and *almost* ready for bottling, expecting 4-5 bottles of that - taste is mellow but I'll let that age a while too. Just starting on the tea mead.

Pomegranate/blood orange mead moved into secondary fermentation. About 9% ABV right now. Still needs to age out the yeast, and the orange is much stronger than the pomegranate. A little juice before bottling will trade ABV for flavor, but should come out great. :)

Clarity leaves a little to be desired, and needs to age a few months to smooth out. Managed 3 full bottles and another half I can try to salvage from the sediment. Vanilla and cinnamon are very front, apple and fig a bit more subtle. Sweet but not too sweet. Just shy of 13% ABV.

Bottles of mead

Late-night taste-test led to emergency midnight bottling of the first batch of Newton’s Mead. May have left the vanilla and cinnamon in a *tad* too long, but it’s still tasty.

I'm optimistic enough to believe in the best in people - it's why I loved the Good Place - but I'm also realistic enough to know that there's people out there who embody the worst of humanity, who will accrue power then then lord it over others. And much like Captain America, I don't like bullies.

We grew up in the same environment, heard the same stories about how this country was great, a land of opportunity for all, how anyone could be anything they wanted, how the law protected everyone equally....years spent learning the national mythology, and now you're surprised that I believe in it?

...and then turn around and ask how my mom is. Excuse me? You just spent 15 minutes pissing in my Cheerios, and now you want polite small talk? Make up your mind - am I a divisive, un-American source of disruption, or am I your neighbor to chit-chat with?

Yet they don't *see* it. They claim liberals are the ones "full of hate" while hating on DEI, immigrants, LGBTQ, government workers, etc. They'll flat-out tell me to my face that liberals are "the enemy" and list off everything they think is horrible about me...

They're so caught up in hating the things they've been groomed to hate that they don't even care that they're cutting off their own nose to spite their face. They'll pay any price necessary to make sure that those they disapprove of suffer - because that's the point, Protestant guilt as policy.

The things that they're cheering and approving of are having negative impacts on their fellow Americans, and they simply... don't care.

They'll say, "Well, I'm sorry the people you know are going through that." No, you're really not. At best, you're sorry you're hearing about it.

Been trying to stay positive and active - trying to work out, making mead, the 3D printer is churning out stuff, getting writing done...

But also trying to grapple with how many people I considered friends have turned out to be remarkably shitty people. It's depressing.

I’m still trying to figure out how this “saves over $1M”. The systems are already in place, it’s not like there’s significant future changes. If anything, undoing those changes are gonna cost money.

Mead carboy with several inches of sediment in the bottom.

Oh. That *might* be a little bit more sediment than I’d expected. 🤣🤣

At this rate I’m going to lose a whole bottle’s worth.

Somehow, I feel like I may have picked a bad time to pick up a hobby that involves sizable amounts of honey and fruit, especially since it creates a sizable amount of alcohol.

😮☠️

So, on a TOTALLY unrelated note, my second batch of mead is coming along *swimmingly*. Still a few months from being bottled and aged, but pretty happy with the progress so far (2 wks in).