As l contemplate the Miracle of the Resurrection, like all good Catholic Gnomes do, I decided to dedicate and make a gesture in Celebration of this Time by humbly naming my latest fermentation effort:  Resurrection Metheglin.  As all mead drinkers know, a metheglin is a type of mead that has herbs and spices added to it in order to alter the taste and/or properties of the basic honey and water ferment.

In this particular case, I have used liquorice root, star anise and Ligusticum wallichi, also known as Chuanxiong Rhizoma in Traditional Chinese Medicine and also as Szechuan Lovage.  The star anise and liquorice root add that sweetish, unctuous and mouth-coating flavour while the Rhizoma adds a more earthy, complex and spicy aroma that has hints of fennel and celery.

The rest of the recipe is made with our usual Rainforest Honey and Toledo Rainwater adjusted to our (mild) preferred strength of 4-5% alcohol content, the final intention being to have a sparkling product closer in character to beer rather than champagne.  Oh yes, I’ve used the lager yeast that I have been babying along all these months in an attempt to “evolve” and adapt to our local honey and high temperature mead conditions.

May we all find some measure of Enlightenment at this time.