Rose Mead
Mead is one of Northern Europe's more ancient alcoholic beverages, and all naff SCA-type connotations aside, actually makes quite a pleasant, if somewhat over-sweet tipple. It's also a marvellous way of drowning your sorrows after discovering that the woman you were meant to be meeting tomorrow night, has run off for a life of adventure with the Drazi Mutai Squad.
Ingredients
1 gallon water
3lbs light honey
6 large cloves
1 halved nutmeg
1 handful of stick cinamon
2 handful whole allspice
Zest and pulp of 1 medium orange
2 tbsp bread yeast
2 pints fresh red rose petals
2 teabags
Mix the honey and water, the heat to a point just below boiling, skimming off and discarding as much of the resultant white foam as possible. Add the cloves, nutmeg, allspice, orange zest and pulp, the rose petals, and 1 cup of double strength black tea (2 teabags to 1 cup of boiling water) Keep the mixture at steaming (not boiling) temperature for 2-5 hours.
Cool the mixture to lukewarm, then strain or sciphon into 2 large bottles, filling each to only shoulder level. Add 1 tbsp of yeast to each bottle, and attactch airlocks. Leave in a warm, but not hot place for 7-21 days, or until airlocks break -(that nicely heated corridor in Grey 12, just behind the waste recycler would make a superb location for fermenting mead.) After fermentation, sciphon into clean bottles, and age in a cool place for at least 6 weeks before drinking.