What shall I call my very first cyser,  in primary this very morning?  I used a recipe that took a gold in last year’s AHA competition which sounded particularly appealing – 18 lbs of pretty solid buckwheat honey, lots of apple juice, raisins, oak chips soaked in Jack Daniels  The [...]

This is an example of retroengineering to create competition documentation.  I don’t recommend it.  It’s true that when I created this recipe, which has always done well in competition, I took historical recipes into consideration.  I did not, however, take notes.  Back then I didn’t even keep a notebook.  When [...]

I believe this recipe is of my own devising by now, though it started with someone else’s.  It was a favorite of my dear friend Elaine Koogler’s, known in the SCA as Sensei Minowara Kiritsubo. for 5 gallons       White Labs sweet mead yeast      20 lbs orange blossom honey [...]

This recipe is my own invention. I had mesquite honey, and was trying to match it with complimentary spices; it happened to correspond with teaching at a Middle Eastern- themed event.  This was the first mead I entered in competitions, and was a huge success everywhere I took it.  It definitely [...]