Last summer, as I began experimenting with mead, I read a post on Vthombrewguru.com that I’ve been thinking about since.

Brother Adam’s made me a fan of braggot.

Nearly six months ago, I ventured to make my first mead. The results? Meh. So I tried again.

Two weeks ago, I set off for the grocery store to buy as much honey as I could drink.

It was an inspired — some might say rash — project, the kind of demon-driven need I get every couple of weeks to make something fermentable.

Mead was my goal, and to be quite honest, I had little idea of how to accomplish it. I’d read a magazine article and watched a few videos on YouTube while my son napped. Beyond that, I did almost no planning. (Which also is how I ended up at the co-op, 30 minutes from home, with a large toddler who smelled like the back end of a garbage truck and I had no diapers or wipes to change him.)

Nope. Absolutely zero forethought. And yet, despite myself, I have a delicious honey wine fermenting away in my closet.

The point being that making a basic mead is almost idiot proof. We’re talking Pop Tarts and paint-by-numbers kind of ease. Heat water, mix in honey, throw in a bucket with yeast. Wait.