That’s the thing about experimental recipes, sometimes you just don’t know until a few months after bottling if you’ve created a masterpiece or not… unfortunately, this was not it! Feel free to watch the series to see what I did, but this recipe would require quite a bit of tweaking. -See below for the recipe & advice!-

Even after a year the mead wasn’t great (heck, even after two years, even though it did improve with age). I think the downfall of this was too much dried elderberry – it made the mead really earthy, and blended with the bochet honey, it came out too dark and rich.

If you want to experiment based off the idea, use the following:
Primary:
Bochet (cooked) 2.5lb Sourwood Honey
.5lb non-bochet Sourwood Honey
TOSNA nutrient additions (fermented as traditional)

After fermentation has completed:
Stabilize mead
1/4 cup cooked dried Elderberries (re-hydrated & cooked for 30 min)
***The elderberry step is what needs adjusting!!! Unsure of proper amount of dried fruit or boil time***
Added some Black Currant Concentrate to taste & a Vanilla Bean (which is hard to detect in this mead due to the overwhelming fruit presence)
Acid & Tannin Balancing is recommended!

Allow to clear and bottle!