2022-01-30 - Mead 🍯
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Recently, a good friend and I bought some equipment to ferment mead. We've some decent vessels and some really budget ingredients to start it out with; a fine, vintage mead brought to you by Cosco, Amazon, and two bachelors! Begrudgingly so we will use Cosco/Amazon proudcts, but we need to test this out cheaply at first before we move to proper honey and ingredients. This is my friend and I's first attempt at making any kind of alcoholic beverage, so best we practice with the garbage stuff.
I'm excited for this, though. The plan is to get really good at this, make some great recipes that use local honey, local fruit, no perservatives or other chemicals, and make a clean product to honor a unique part of east Canadian history in relationship to the Vinlandic stories referenced in Old Norse sagas. You can probably see how that idea was spun: Vikings, Vinland, mead. Easy to see, right? To be serious, though, that's particularly a big motivator for me. It's curious, the opportunity to honor an unspoken part of our country's history, let alone to practice an ancient tradition of crafting an ancient drink.
I think it's a wonderful idea. I wonder how it'll pan out... If it does take off and touch a palate of interest, we'll get licensed up to sell it to try and make some side income; a very important thing people ought to do in general, let alone in todays' societies.
Why, Though?
The idea is attractive for that reason of helping us autonomise our income. It's much more than booze -> money, though. I see it:
- Teaching us a practical, hands-on skill.
- Giving us access to honeybee products, like honey, wax, etc. that we can craft into other things.
- Encouraging a lifestyle of making things ourselves, complimenting an autonamous lifestyle (or, at least, aiding to remove dependency on a few aspects of a modern, consumerist life.)
- Encouraging the attractive idea of owning land to transform into a fruitful, permaculture'd farm and apiary.
- Helping revive an ancient product into local interest and attention.
- Personally honoring and hopefully kindling an untapped part of east Canadian (I'll call "Vinlandic") culture.
I really see a positive, snowballing trajectory with this endeavour, even if we don't end up turning a profit, so we're going to try our hand at it. Profit isn't our primary goal here, though it would be a bonus. I do believe a lot of good can come of this.
I'll keep my part of the journey loosely catalogued on my website here.