A recent group buy organized by the altogether fabulous Deborah of Queen Bee Brews, Denver's awesomest meadery, yielded this unusual varietal. Coriander honey is medium dark with a warm, spicy body and a lovely touch of coriander aroma. Much of the rest of this gallon of honey went into Patrick's batch 161.

This is another entry in my series of varietal meads with Lalvin 71B-1122 wine yeast. I only named it when I opened the bucket on bottling day and smelled the finished mead. I'd been listening to Springsteen's new single by the same title that day, which may have influenced the phrasing; but it really does smell like sunshine.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 5 lbs 3/7 oz lbs Moon Shine Trading Co. California coriander honey, plus another 1 lb added on 5/2
  • 2 tsp Carlson yeast nutrient
  • 1 tsp Carlson yeast energizer
  • 2/3 of a batch of Lalvin 1122 yeast, rehydrated

Process

I made this mead on 4/7. The process for all of these varietal meads is a standard "dump it all in a carboy and pitch the yeast" affair. To be honest, I'm not even bothering to read gravity on all of them; they should all be starting around 1.1. When we tasted it on 5/2, it had fermented bone dry, so I added another pound of honey.

I bottled this batch on August 8 with a final gravity of 1.037, which puts it around 11% and makes it extremely sweet as my meads go. It works really well--this mead smells and tastes like pure joy--but I should have let it clarify longer; some of the bottles came out pretty opaque.