Thinking about flavours etc........

I spend much time reading, reading, reading....... Particularly at the forums and places on facebook that focus on meads (no surprise there).

So what's the issue ? Well, I might not be much of an expert, but some of the flavour combinations are absolutely fucking ridiculous.

For example, anything with chocolate. Why ? I hear you say........

If chocolate was such a good and easy material to use, it'd be in every fucking thing! It's marvellous when made into hard(ish) confectionery. Equally, it makes a wonderful, warming, winter evening drink. Mostly because it's got milk mixed with it or at least some sort of lower calorie non-dairy whitener......

Pure cocoa/chocolate powder is not a good flavouring element for everything. If you look at the sort of alcoholic drinks that do contain it, the ones that are successful are the ones that have a cream base.

Now I can't say for certain, but there do seem to be so many reasons to stick with the basics of flavour combinations, so as not to bother making anything slightly unusual.

Ok, I'm happy to admit that there are some strange ones out there, that have been proven to be successful despite being counter-intuitive, like chocolate and chilli or strawberry with black pepper, but these are exceptions not the rule. Most of them have been found or worked out by experts in the field, like chocolatiers and molecular gastronomists etc.

Not by use home booze makers.

Sure, there will be some flavours and tastes that are culturally localised, but outside that region the sort of combinations that nobody would normally consider.

Maybe the issue is what the wine/mead is made from ? Tomato wine ? Parsnip wine ? what the fuck are those. Tomato is great in cooking, but the flavour changes so much with primary fermentation (which is, after all, controlled rotting, so "it" changes to a different flavour), parsnip is just something that I don't like anyway, so I wouldn't eat it let alone ferment it.....

Of course, it's fair to say that if it's edible it's likely that it can be fermented. Equally that doesn't mean that it SHOULD be fermented.

As I said above, there are good reasons to use materials with a proven track record. Why bother using materials that produce stuff that tastes like puke!