Book 4, Chapter 65: The Specifics of Meadmaking The first place Alba showed me, was of course, her wine cellar. She popped a heretofore unnoticed latch on the floor, and lifted a small section of floor to reveal a stairwell down into darkness. I looked around. The roof was low, and it was dry and cool down here, like your typical wine cellar. Mead did best between fifteen and twenty degrees, so it felt about right. There were roughly two dozen wooden casks stacked in the middle of the floor, each labeled with a date and time and number code, as well as some racks on the walls filled with bottles. “How much do youh know of our history, Peyter?” Alba asked, as we descended the stairwell. I thought for a moment before answering. “Most of what Failith told me, and what little Duke Barnes was able to say. I know about the plains tribes, the betrayal, and resulting enslavement. I also know that you’re trying to craft the Spiritual Nectar to complete the ritual necessary to Specialize as a [Shaman].” “Yes. But by now, even if we are able to resurrect the [Shamans], there will likely be too few left in the Coalition to fight the amassed armies of the Alliance.” Alba walked to a back shelf and pulled a bottle out of the shadows as well as two metal goblets. As she popped the cork out and poured a clear golden liquid into the goblets, she smiled regretfully. “But we will endure. Perhaps our people will flee into the city states of the East and South. Mayhaps I’ll goh into the meadmayking business. Goodness knows I’ve mayde enough.” I didn’t say anything. What could I say under the circumstances? Something pithy and hopeful? “To our success. May it have meaning.” Alba said, raising her goblet in a toast. “For the Tribes.” “Fer tha Tribes!” I echoed, and took a drink. I was immediately hit by the sheer intensity of the alcohol. Phew! This had to be over 20 percent! I nearly gagged as it burned down my throat. It had a mellow flavour, and a low acidity, but the sheer alcohol content drowned out any semblance of balance. There was also a heavy sweetness to it, which spoke of a sack mead, but no other adjuncts I could taste. Sack meads, also called great meads, were traditionally made by using more honey than the yeast could properly ferment. Most common yeasts were unable to survive above a 14-16% ABV and would either get stuck or start dying off. The trick was to avoid so much honey that it stressed the yeast and gave off-flavours. Or you could just cheat and do the old sodium-metabisulfite-potassium-sorbate and backsweeten trick like with ciders. I personally preferred the traditional method over the chemical method, but it did result in more bad batches. If done correctly, the result was a sweet clean finish and a full body. This had the sweet finish, but the body wasn't quite there. “Good?” Alba asked, grinning. “That’s our strongest variation.” “It’s certainly that!” I gasped. “Let me guess. More honey than your usual variation, and you have to age it longer than most to get it ta mellow out. And it fails more often than not.” She nodded with satisfaction. “You can tell all that from just taysting it? You are good!” “Are these all completed batches?” I asked, gesturing at the kegs. “Yes. And a few that are still fermenting.” Alba led me back upstairs and closed the floor. “What would you like to see first?” I cleared my throat, “Before I say my part, what do you consider ‘mead’.” “Well, fermented honey of course!” She laughed. “Of course.” I pointed to the racks of ingredients, and began activating ingredients on my [Map]. “Then let’s start with all these. I’ll check ‘em with my Ability while you tell me what ya know.” Adrian and Livia stayed at a respectful distance, listening in as Alba took me through her supplies. “When all the [Shamans] were slain, a few of their apprentices were either away or in their own camps. Mystic Isen was one of them, and he was able to collate all the common ingredients of his [Shaman’s] hut and pass it on to us. So while we don’t know the exyact ingredients, or the exyact process, we do know all the ingredients that were used to mayke the Nectar.” I thumbed through some of the spices. There was everything from dried basil and bergamot, to dehydrated fruits and what looked like desiccated insects. I frowned as I looked up and down the rows of materials. There was a lot of stuff in here. “Do you know which ones were used for the meads, and which for whatever other alchemy they did?” Alba shook her head. “No. You see the problem.” I did. There was almost an infinite number of meads they could make with this stuff. “Can I see what you use for the must?” I asked. Maybe we could start with the honey? Different honeys could have a pretty big impact on the final flavour. She pulled a small jar from a shelf and walked over to the pot in the center of the room. She unceremoniously dumped the pot in, and a delicious smelling honey spilled out and into the pot. I could smell it from a solid five paces away, and I felt my stomach rumble. It was like standing in a field of sweet wildflowers in spring while snorting pure sugarcane. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. “Getting getting the actual honey is nearly the hardest part right nohw,” Alba sighed. “It’s well known that Spiritual Nectar uses the honey from the beedles of Hive Dungeon. That’s one of the reasons it’s a controlled substance – they seek to prevent us from mayking more. We have only a small supply remaining.” I thought about Valarienne, who even now was headed to Hive. He’d promised to bring a bunch of honey back for Bran, so perhaps that problem was already solved. I didn’t want to give her false hope though, so I kept my mouth shut. “I’d offer you some to taste, but we really are low on supplies.” Alba said, fetching a bucket of water and pouring it into the mix. She started a flame under the cauldron, pulled out a ladle and began stirring. “So. Honey and water. Is your honey pre-proportioned?” I asked, leaning in to watch her stir the honey and rapidly warming water. “Anythin’ special about the water? “Yes and no. We fouhnd that the supplied yeast works best with a large amount of honey. Too much and it wouldn’t properly ferment, too little and it would be too dry. Mystic Isen says all he was ever told by his masters was that the Nectar was ‘sweet and strong as the song of the soul’.” I nodded. Then a sack mead was probably on the right track. “Are your tools sanitized?” “Yes. I have the [Clean Tools] Ability. We learned that trick early.” She turned the heater off as soon as the honey was dissolved, avoiding the common beer-brewer-turned-mead-maker mistake of boiling the water. That could degrade the honey – warm was good, hot was bad. It was now what we called must, just like in standard winemaking. Next she reached up to another shelf and pulled down a packet that she pitched into the must. “This is our yeast,” She said, “and this is one of the only other ingredients we’ve fouhnd absolutely necessary for all ouhr meads.” She pulled another packet down, and showed it to me. “We don’t quite understand how it works, or why it’s necessary, but the local [Alchemists] say it’s a mix of ‘organic nitrogens made from old yeasts’.” I snapped it up, quickly activating a couple filters on my [Map]. Then I did a little happy jig. “Hah! You have Fermaid-O! Amazing!” She raised an eyebrow. “Fermaid what?” “Fermaid-O. How to explain… ya know how yer mead is real strong? Well, most yeasts don’t actually do that well in pure honey. They need a bit of nitrogen ta properly grow, and honey’s got none. In beer or wine, tha fruit and grains provide most of tha’ nitrogen needed, though wine can be tricky. The common solution back in the day was to add some fruit ta the must to make a fruit-mead called a melomel. But if you have yeast nutrient – a special blend of nitrogens – ya can make a pure sack. I was actually really worried you wouldn’t have it!” “Back where I come from they called it Fermaid-O.” I gave the little packet a kiss. “Bless ‘yer [Alchemists]!” Alba smiled. “I’m glad the Master Brewer approves!” She grabbed another of the fermaid packets and tossed the greyish powder inside into the must, then stirred it until it all dissolved. “Aaand, done. We just need to put this in a keg and give it a few weeks.” And she was right. Mead really was that easy to make. Especially a traditional sack. Personally I liked to stagger mine, using Fermaid-K to bring my mead up to an ABV of 9% and then dumping in some Fermaid-O, but if all they had was O, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Unfortunately, Fermaid-K was a man-made proprietary mix, and I had no idea how to make it. Boo. “No adjuncts?” I asked, gesturing at everything. She sighed. “We’ve spent over a hundred years trying thousands of combinations. But none have been successful. Even the bug stuff.” “Hmmm…. Master Vitner Romero apparently based his own wine on the beastfolk mead. Did ya know?” Alba nodded. “Yes, Failith was meant to ask him about it in Tree. Did he succeed?” “Yes and no. Romero doesn’t know the specifics of how it was made, but I have seen his winemaking techniques and think we can make some educated guesses. One: Master Romero uses [Refine Brew] on his wine. Two: The Spiritual Nectar was also called ‘Heart of Fire’. Three: It provides a ‘Spiritual Experience’.” Alba thumbed at her antlers. “We don’t have [Refine Brew], though we have something similar. [Mystics] gain alchemical and magic Milestones more easily, so several of us have [Imbue Potion]. It works on a smaller scale with a stronger effect so it wouldn’t be useful for mass production, but it does work for small batches.” I started going down the piles of ingredients. “Since it’s got Fire in the name, there’s a good chance it’s a capiscomel, which means a spicy mead. I doubt it’s a melomel, though it could also be a metheglin.” Alba shook her head. “What do those all mean?” “Meads are a bit different from all tha other alcohols, in that they’re usually named after their adjuncts. Add some fruit to tha must, and ya got a melomel, though if you add apple it’s a cyser, or grapes it’s a pyment. Add some spices like cinnamon or bergamot – I love tea meads by tha way – and ya got a metheglin. Roses and it’s a rhodomel, caramel and it’s a bochet. One of tha most famous variants is also one of tha most ancient – made with an herb called gesho from Ethiopia.” ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩•𝗳𝗂𝗋𝖾•𝕟𝕖𝕥 Alba looked star struck. “So many! We’ve just been calling them all mead!” “Ah, well you’ve been worried about somethin’ else, so it makes sense.” “Is there anything for bugs?” She asked, gesturing at a jar labeled ‘ground crickets’. “Ummm… not that I know of.” Gods save us from bug-wine! “So you think that the Spiritual Nectar is… a capiscomel, you called it?” “Good a guess as any. Let’s see about grabbin’ every spicy dungeon material, especially ones with lotsa Mana that can cause confusion, sleepiness, or increase awareness, and then go from there.” “Of course!” Alba looked positively delighted. “Adrian, Livia! You heard the Master Brewer! Get to it!” “Yes Mystic Alba – “ The two drawled as they got to organizing. Time to make some mead!