You may not know this but most mead takes at least one year to age and often takes longer before it is really any good. There are apparently monks in Poland who still make mead that won't be drunk until it has been aging for 100 years. They are currently drinking the wine made by monks in the early 20th century. Allegedly.
I found a recipe on gotmead forums which is supposed to be ready in about a month so that was my first batch, put together on Sunday and pictured on the left. It's official name is Bray's One Month Mead (the BOMM). Unofficially they call it "the mead you drink while you make mead". I made this one with Mesquite Honey that I picked up at Trader Joe's and a London Ale yeast (due to a mix-up at the brewing supply store) instead of the Belgian Ale yeast that I should have used so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. This is a pure mead. Nothing in the jar but honey, water, some yeast food, and yeast.
The second batch, Joe's Ancient Orange is technically a melomel as it has oranges and raisins, but it also has cinnamon and cloves. This is an interesting recipe as the history, according to the guys on the forum, is that it came from one of the early members of the forum. He found or created this recipe using historical documents and it has a great reputation as a quick and easy mead. It also uses bread yeast rather than wine or beer yeast. Takes eight or nine months to be drinkable so this will be a longer term project and we shall see.
