I recently began a batch of mead as a homebrew project. This particular variety is called a bochet. The word is French in origin, though there are other historical references to this particular mead variety.
My goal was to create a mead that tasted a bit like caramel. Obviously including fats and dairy in your alcohol doesn’t usually end well, so I couldn’t just use caramels. I decided to attempt a modified caramel cooking from scratch in my kitchen by just melting and browning some dry sugar (though I think I will just boil it in some water for an extended period next time – this coming from a perspective of ease, not taste). I simmered the dry sugar on the stove for about 40 minutes. I couldn’t say what the temperatures were, just medium-low. The sugar did melt and it did get runny, and it was brown. So on that front it worked out for me.
Next I attempted to boil 10 pounds of honey for 20 minutes. Through this process I found out that honey boils very violently – worse than when you accidentally boil milk. Oh man it made a huge mess! I don’t know if I got the honey to any degree of “cooked”, but at least it did boil. It did take quite a while to warm up the 10 pounds too. I lowered the heat and watched it carefully for the next 10 minutes or so and it did darken ever so slightly. I’ll need to look to see how to properly prepare the honey for a bochet if I decide to go this route again.
Fermentation kicked off swimmingly. I’ve been stirring it daily (with a sanitized paddle) to ensure the must and the yeast all mix up nicely and the sugars all remain suspended so the yeast can convert them to alcohol! So far, it smells great but there is not much of a caramel smell to it, just smells like a show mead. This is fine, I do like regular, unadulterated mead, but it would be mildly disappointing because that was not what I was going for. More to come on this front as the racking and aging process continues.