We made a trip back to SoCal in August and visited one of our favorite honey vendors, Bennett's in Fillmore. I'm doing a series of varietal meads to showcase the wonderful honeys we got from these folks. Their cactus honey was the basis of my favorite early batch, 002: Battle at the Glasshouse, and I still looooove that honey with all its creamy, desert-y goodness. The mead's name is a nod to one of my favorite old synthpop songs, Oppenheimer Analysis' New Mexico.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 2.5 (?) lbs Bennett's cactus honey
  • 1 tsp yeast nutrient
  • ½ tsp yeast energizer
  • ⅓ batch Lalvin 1122 yeast, rehydrated

Process

Mixed this up on 8/21 with an SG of 1.080. I bottled it on 12/2; it came out bone dry at 0.994 (11.3% ABV).