On a fall trip through California, I spotted a "local honey" sign along the Pearblossom Highway and pulled over. The store in tiny Littlerock, CA turned out to be Charlie Brown Farms, a goofy roadside attraction-cum-desert supermarket I'd idly considered visiting before. Among a variety of jerky, toys and tchotchkes of many descriptions, and a lineup of fine deep-fried fair foods, Charlie Brown Farms also offered two kinds of bulk honey: this sage varietal and a wildflower one that Patrick planned to use. We know no details about the sourcing, but the honeys appeared to be from the area, so they're desert honeys for sure. I got a 5.5-lb jar, so I'm simply making a 2-gallon batch of the basic varietal recipe I've been using with everything lately.

This mead is named for Dagmar Bellinghausen, the main character's best friend in Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, one of my formative novels.

Ingredients in this batch

  • Just over 5.5 lbs desert sage honey
  • 1 tsp Carlson yeast nutrient
  • 1 tsp Carlson yeast energizer
  • ½ batch Lalvin 1122 yeast, rehydrated

Process

I made this mead on 11/11. The process for all of these varietal meads is a standard "dump it all in a carboy and pitch the yeast" affair. SG was 1.115.

At bottling on 5/5, final gravity was 1.006, yielding an ABV around 14.3%. This mead currently reads more spicy than sagey to me, but I expect the herbal notes will come back out during aging.