Thorn in My Hive

So I had a bottle of that prickly pear mead (honey wine) that I bottled back in June which was only 3/4 full. Concerned that this might oxidize and become unpalatable (I believe the technical term is "yucky") I popped it in the refrigerator yesterday and uncorked it tonight.



Wow. Talk about a profoundly sweet alcoholic beverage. The honey is very much front and center, and the prickly pear fruit gives it a light, not-quite-obvious fruity undertone. I didn't actually want this batch to be so sweet, but I used a lot of honey in the fermentation process and eventually the yeast knocked itself out trying to deal with all that sugar. As it is, the alcohol content is pretty sturdy--at least 15 percent, and possibly higher. I got a slight buzz simply from sipping one glass of the stuff. It's not bad at all, and improved rapidly upon exposure to air. There's almost no rough edge to this stuff, so I can only imagine how it will improve once it's aged for a year or more.

I also played around on the computer and came up with some labels. "Thorn in My Hive." Clever, huh?

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