Summer is here and knowing that it will will only last a few days at most, I invited a bunch of friends over for a barbeque. Summer just isn’t summer without spending at least one evening defiantly trying to cook sausages in the pouring rain, or biting through the thick black crust on a piece of burnt chicken to find that it is complete raw and bloody in the centre. Yum…
It was also a good opportunity to crack open a few bottles of the unidentified homemade wines that are cluttering up the garden shed, sample the accidental cider, and at last to have my long-awaited mead taste-off with Fendog.
Firstly, the cider. Well, what can I say… it was sweeter that I expected, and flatter than Fendog’s wallet. After the explosive bottling episode, I had expected some secondary fermentation in the bottles but clearly the yeast had bought it. Still, it was very pleasant. I’m not a cider fan but could happily have enjoyed a couple of jars of this scrumpy. The Paramedic, who is a cider drinker, also gave it the thumbs up.
Next, the mead. We had to drink our way through three (still unknown) bottles til we actually located my mead, but we got there eventually, and thankfully Fendog had managed to distiguish his mead from his (potentially poisonous) ginger wine. Here is my completely unbiased review of the two meads:
Runner Bean 2007
I remember trying this a few years ago when it had been in the bottle less than a year. As I recall, it was rough as a badger's arse. We hoping it had improved with age. The colour was interesting amber - like freshly pressed apple juice. It smelt exactly like cheap sherry. The taste was not far off that too. The distnctive aftertase puzzled us for a few minutes until Ding Dong nailed it - Tiramasu! Good call.
Cranberry Wine
A lovely red colour and an intense, fresh berry aroma. The taste was lush with that spike of acidity you might expect from cranberries. Not a bad drop of country wine.
Green Stuff
There's no getting around it, this stuff looked unatural. It was a just a little bit TOO green. I 'm sure by the end of the evening I noticed it glowing slightly in the dark. It smelt distinctly medicinal, and it tasted.... interesting! I wish I had taken a video clip of people's facial expressions when they tried it.
Blackberry Wine
Smelt like Ribena. Not any of your lesser blackcurrant squashes: Ribena. Without a doubt. Unfortunately, the smell was the best bit. However, by the fourth sip, the tastebuds were sufficiently numbed to make this wine almost pallatable.
Trenchfoot's Mead
This bottle was unmarked and its contents a mystery. A sniff from the bottle gave the wonderfully vanilla ice-cream aroma. However, once in the glass, a quick taste assured us that it was unmistakably from my missing batch of mead. Just like the last time we tried it, it was deliciously sweet and complex. It was syrupey with good legs - definitely a dessert wine; you couldn't drink too much of it. But it was excellent and got rave reviews.
Pinapple liqueur
Another unmarked bottle, this time smelling like boiled sweets. A taste confirmed it was my pineapple liqueur, although it wasn't obvious as you might think. It was strong stuff and tended cause slight wincing if taken in anything more than a small sip. Pretty Boy took this home with him on his bike and he has not been seen since.
Tea wine 2006
As you might expect this one looked like iced tea with an aroma to match.Although I made it with Chinese jasmine tea, I couldn't detect much of the floral persuasion in the wine. The taste was inoffensive but unimpressive producing mixed reviews from our panel. The verdict: "like weak tea with an edge".
Unidentified white
Another unmarked bottle and this time much for difficult to draw any firm conclusions about its contents. Upon uncorking there was a faint pop and the wine was slightly sparkling betraying a posibe malolactic fermentation, though it was not unpleasant as a result. Rather it was the smell and taste that made it unplesant. The aroma was unmistakable - permenant maker. It tasted of off fruit with a hint of vinegar. I'm thinking this must have been my Pineapple Wine .
Banana Wine
We were totally loving the luscious banana aromas - like an explosion in a Nesquik factory. The taste, however, didn't quite live up to the promise made by the nose. The reviews from our expert tasters covered the whole spectrum, from "repugnant", through "not disguisting", to "delicious".
Homemade Absynthe
The intense blue-green colour was disturbingly reminiscent of anti-freeze, but the smell and taste was just like proper absynthe. It was noticeable not as strong as the stuff Knuckles brought back from Portugal (70% ABV) which left the Outlaw without vision for two days, but that is not a bad thing. For some bizarre reason, the lads insisted on drinking it neat rather than the traditional way with sugar and ice water, which to my mind makes it a very pleasant apperitif as apposed to a viscious throat-burning hallucinogen.