The meading of life

Picassic Pond Hálfsætt Traditional Mead (New Hampshire) – Strikingly transparent, with raw honey front and center. It’s not like eating honey itself, but it seems devoid of mitigation or trickery along the way to getting an alcoholic version of same. Terrific. (5/08)

Picassic Pond Elderberry Melomel (New Hampshire) – The flavor’s OK, sort of a tarted-up version of honey with black fruit notes and a little surplus acidity, but the smell is fetid and atrocious. (5/08)

Picassic Pond Pumpkin Spice Mead (New Hampshire) – Not bad, but the obscuring spice (which is more anonymous than pumpkin-y) mostly just serves to fatten the mead rather than add anything of true complexity. (6/08)