http://www.greenchronicle.com/connies_c ... heglin.htm, that's one variant, there are more and the one I had we had to translate from old English, in fact we used a bottle of that mead to consecrate the footings of an Iron Age round house we built at the Chiltern Open Air Museum. Might be building another one this summer for one of the locals.
Edited to add the above link does not seem to work, probably the Cornish website, but another recipe and it is the one we used in the past ;
http://www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com/CAGM/ ... _mead.html
But on this link the recipe and method has been translated
But warming mead, in a pan on the stove, microwave does odd things to it.
Oak leaf wine has various reputations, some say it is contains psychoactive compounds yet some specialist wine merchants sell it from time to time. I reckon it's fine when it is young and is a golden colour, quite light and dry but as soon as it oxidises and goes a darkish brown, beware, I never tried it when it was that colour but those that did said vertical straight edges started bowing inwards. but home brew wine often isn't stabilised and when air gets at it it changes it's properties.
But if you are going to give it a go, collect a gallon's worth of fresh young oak leaf tips, the light green coloured leaves, wash them, to get the bugs off then brew as a normal country wine.
Witch festivals, yes, mead is a favourite there as is many other brews, all home brew, and I remember one I was asked if I was driving at any point during the day, which I was, so they would not let me have any, but the ex did and she said she felt like a balloon on a length of string as I dragged her across the site. The brew had the name 'entropy' and I was told it is brewed out of the hedge row, nothing illegal in it, just good old British wild plants, mind there are some interesting plants in British hedgerows and a lot of poisons which if used by the knowledgeable they are not so much poisons but powerful medicines.
