It was a beautiful day in April, as the love of my life prepped to walk down the isle. My niece and first cousin once removed (what an annoying way to refer to a cousin’s child) were clogging up the aisle. Just moments before they were so happy to play with the rose petals, and now that they had to actually do it, they froze and threw off the timing. But you aren’t here to read about my wedding and romance, this is about mead!
Terrapin Bluffs Mead made its first public appearance at my wedding (well, larger than serving to only a few people at a time). I served the basic JAO recipe and a modified JAO made with blackberries and blueberries, each scaled to 5 gallons so there was enough to go around. We served both as parts of the toast, to rave reviews from all of our guests.
As part of the process, I developed a special mead label to signify the occasion. We used a sunset paper cutout as the central design element for the wedding, so I thought it fitting to place it smack dab in the middle of the logo. I still kept the TBM logo around, but rotated it and shrunk it to take second place behind the importance of the day. We used appropriately colored ribbons to glue the logo to the bottles, giving it the final professional appearance.
From the tasting notes, most of the wine-drinkers preferred the blackberry variety, although as a general rule the majority of the wedding preferred the traditional, unmodified JAO. We were just happy to serve the mead, and have everyone with us for our wonderful wedding. It was so great having all of you involved, and hopefully there will be more mead for all the guests come Christmas!