Herbal wines can be made with any cullinary or medicinal herb, depending on your goals for either flavor or therapeutic benefit.

Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe is the perfect recipe for beginners which you'll find all over the internet. It was originally posted by Joe Mattioli on a website called Got Mead many years ago and went viral.

Here is a recipe to make maple mead aka Acerglyn.

I have made a number of melomels in my day. In fact, they are possibly my number one favorite way to spice up any old mead recipe. Melomel Raspberry Mead via Robin Hill Gardens blog. If you are unfamiliar with the term melomel, it’s simply a mead made like any other mead, but fruit, fruit syrup, or fruit juice or added for extra flavor. These fruits can be added during the primary fermentation, after re-racking, or even during bottling: – If during first fermentation: the fruit, syrup, or juice will add sugars and nutrients that help speed up the fermentation.– If after the re-racking (or during secondary fermentation), the fruit retains more of its fruity taste, but may reignite fermentation, leading to a much longer period before safe bottling. Adding it at this time will also dilute the alcoholic content of the mead, since fruit is over 70% water– If added during bottling, you run the risk of refermentation since fruit is very sugary. It can reignite the yeast and potentially make you blow a bottle. Using potassium sorbate or reinforcing the bottles will prevent this from happening, but you will also run the risk of water-down mead. On the other hand, this will certainly ensure your mead keeps that genuinely fruity taste. Over the years, I have tried all three of the above methods and found that different ones work better for establishing different tastes and alcoholic content. These three recipes are vastly different, but they have all taught me valuable lessons in my years of mead making, and they are all three recipes I return to year after year. 1. Pomegranate Dessert Mead Pomegranates Since pomegranate seeds are mostly juice, we have found that there is little difference between using fresh pomegranates and using organic pomegranate juice in this recipe. People who hate peeling pomegranates may find that the juice is just straight-up easier to manage. Those of your freaks (like myself) who get a perverse pleasure out of popping those little suckers out of their holes, today is your lucky day. If you decide to use the fruit, ensure that you have 3 lbs. of seeds per gallon of mead. That seems like a lot. It totally IS. If you use the juice, we recommend using 32 oz. per every three gallons. Make sure the juice is organic, with no fillers or added sugars. In addition to the pomegranate, add 8 oz. of pure vanilla extract per gallon. Don’t worry about this one diluting your booze– pure vanilla extract is made with alcohol of a proof similar to vodka or rum! This will keep the mead from getting too sour and round it out with a gentle, creamy finish. For ultra sweetness, add this one during the second fermentation. Wait for the second fermentation to end, then let it sit a couple weeks before bottling to be sure nothing blows. Serve it with anything chocolate. 2. Dry Blackberry Mead Melomel Blackberry Mead via Edin Hills blog. Good things come to those who wait! This was my first, honest-to-goodness melomel, and I made it purely because I love the taste of blackberries. We added 3 lbs per gallon, whole berries to the primary fermentation. That is a HELL of a lot of blackberries, but trust me– it’s worth it. Don’t mash them, boil them, or turn them into syrup. Just add them whole and let them do their thing. Now, this one is gonna take a little extra long, but it’s going to be worth it. Wait until the blackberries are completely unrecognizable. The mead will turn a gorgeous, red wine color all on its own, and what remains of the blackberries will sink down into the must. This will probably take a lot longer than you are used to– perhaps three to five months, depending on environmental conditions. Once the bubbling is done and the berries are sunk, rerack it, and then forget about it for like, say, another five months. Trust me– it’s worth the wait! When you bottle it, you will want to sample it, and you will probably be disappointed. It will have that boozy tang that shows that it is not mature enough. That’s ok! It just needs to sit. Let it do so. We let ours sit for about six months and found that it has a delightful taste, but the one bottle we left for a year was where it truly shined. This made it taste like a light, but flavorful red wine. It didn’t have the bitter after taste of Chardonnay, but was closer to a light, pinot noir. 3. Strawberry Syrup Mead Strawberry Syrup via Carlsbad Cravings blog. This is my most recent obsession. I wanted to make something sweet, and our strawberries were just about out of season, so I decided to take the syrup route. Of course, you can buy strawberry syrup, but it’s a) so much more rewarding and b) so much more flavorful to make your own. Again following that metric of 3 lbs. of fruit per gallon, chop your strawberries up into little bits. Then, mix in 1 cup of water and 1 cup of white sugar for every 2 cups of strawberries you have. Boil these suckers until the syrup looks like cough syrup on the back of a metal spoon. For my most recent 1 gallon batch (3 lbs. of strawberries) this took about thirty minutes total, with the occasional stirring so that it didn’t get stuck to the pan. Add this to your honey, then mix in water to both. With all that sugar, these suckers will ferment like crazy, so make sure to keep an eye on your airlocks. Taste it when you rerack– if it’s not strawberry or sweet enough for your liking, add more syrup. If it is, let it sit another month or two to be sure it won’t have a second fermentation.

Yeast is one of the three primary ingredients for mead, the other two being water and honey. Here is a list of tried-and-true dry yeast strains with which many a great mead has been developed.

1 Gallon Batch of Cherry Mead (Cherry Melomel): I have been making mead for about 4 years now and this is probably one of my favorite batches that I have made. This instructable is for anyone interested in trying mead or starting to experiment with other flavors of mead. This is a relatively inex…

Merry Meet! Hope that you are having a good week so far. We had big thunderstorms come thru here yesterday…Hail, thunder, lightning..very dark all day long. Today a glorious sunrise but co…

Sbagliato means "mistake" in Italian. Like a Negroni cocktail but with sparkling wine instead of gin. We love this with fruity Hazy Summer Mead

Almost everyone knows the classic grape wine, but there's a whole world of country wines crafted in homestead kitchens for generations that often go unnoticed. These aren't your typical grape wines; they're concocted using whatever

Thirsty? You will be. Discover dozens of recipes for making and preserving delicious juices, wines, meads, teas, ciders and syrups from fruits, vegetables and herbs. Covers harvesting, cooking, canning, fermenting, freezing and other methods. 223 pp. 7" x 9" Chase and Guest

Sima is a sweat mead that is an essential seasonal brew connected with the Finnish Vappu festival. It is usually spiced by adding both the flesh and rind of a lemon. During secondary fermentation raisins are added to control the amount of sugars and to act as an indicator of readiness for consumption — they will rise to the top of the bottle when the drink is ready. Sima is usually accompanied by munkkeja or Tippaleivät (donuts and other pastries). Mead is ready after 2-3 days.

This month: Identities for the Mexican CBD line Xula, the Canadian projection-mapping festival Mapp, and the Norwegian alcohol-free wine Ambijus.

Sushi is the dish to have if you're looking for something new. The nice part is that it goes well with wine. Sushi is rolled rice wrapped in seaweed and mixed with vinegar. The seafood inside the roll can be served raw or cooked. Depending on the ingredients and sauces used, they can be prepared

Dandelion flowers have many uses! Here are over 50 dandelion recipes for drinks, sweets, savories, bath and body, and remedies.

Dandelion flowers have many uses! Here are over 50 dandelion recipes for drinks, sweets, savories, bath and body, and remedies.

Use fresh rhubarb to make a clear golden dessert wine. Great for early spring rhubarb harvests.

Maple mead, also called acerglyn, is made by replacing some of the honey with pure maple syrup. Here is a one gallon maple mead recipe fermented with orange and spices!

This year marks the 4th year of our Homebrew shop. Interest in mead making seems to us to have increased a lot over those years. When people ask us for a Mead Recipe for Beginners, this is the recipe we use. It's ideal as a base for adding fruits and herbs.

I asked a friend the other day if he had ever tried mead. He had to think about it for a while. "Isn't that what they drink in Game of Thrones?" he finally asked me. Yes. Yes it is. So what is mead? I mean, really... To put it simply, it's wine made from honey.... Continue Reading →

Some call it “hillbilly wine,” others would never drink it on principle, and most people have never even heard of it, now that we, as a society, buy our wine in 750 ml. bottles and comment on its floral notes and hints of vanilla and peach. The elixir I’m talking about is homemade, four-ingredient fruit wine. It’s a simple by-product of hungry yeasts feasting on the sugar contained in the summer and fall harvests of ripened fruits. For many thousands of years it was a method of preservation analogous to canning, allowing folks to still enjoy their fruit in those cold winter months.

Maple mead, also called acerglyn, is made by replacing some of the honey with pure maple syrup. Here is a one gallon maple mead recipe fermented with orange and spices!

Dandelion flowers have many uses! Here are over 50 dandelion recipes for drinks, sweets, savories, bath and body, and remedies.

A sommelier explains the differences between six popular types of red wine, and a local wine ambassador shares which foods pair best with each type.

We have ranked the best books on fermentation for beginners. Get started quickly preserving your own food with the help of these best sellers.

Maple mead, also called acerglyn, is made by replacing some of the honey with pure maple syrup. Here is a one gallon maple mead recipe fermented with orange and spices!

I asked a friend the other day if he had ever tried mead. He had to think about it for a while. "Isn't that what they drink in Game of Thrones?" he finally asked me. Yes. Yes it is. So what is mead? I mean, really... To put it simply, it's wine made from honey.... Continue Reading →

A little tart, but very sweet. There are so many ways to use pineapple extract throughout the whole year!

I asked a friend the other day if he had ever tried mead. He had to think about it for a while. "Isn't that what they drink in Game of Thrones?" he finally asked me. Yes. Yes it is. So what is mead? I mean, really... To put it simply, it's wine made from honey.... Continue Reading →

I went to the SF20 (now SF20/21!) preview party last night, and my favorite part was the little artists' colony they set up near the entrance. Small a-frame rooms were built out of wood beams, and...

Take a a self-guided tour of Abbotsford's farms and markets. Enjoy country air, mountain views, lavender fields, artisan cheeses, wine tasting & more