I can be a lazy sonofabitch, sadly. I let something sit for a while, because I'm too autistic (not literally) to do things in a sensible and linear fashion.
Well, what do you know, it turned out good anyway.
I just turned a gallon of store-bought juice into actually fucking delicious 14%+ ABV fruit wine.
Tastes a fair bit like a brandy. And very on-brand for my current piratical mood.
I. MADE. GOOD. BOOZE.
Get on my level, scrubs.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
Mead is 200% on my list. Then again, it has been on my list for almost two years.
Before I hit up mead, though, I want to do some cider. I've got some apple juice and some yeast. Now that I broke through my lethargy, maybe I'll finally do something with it, and make it happen.
I'd love to take credit, but it's literally Juice + Sugar + Yeast + Time = Potentially Delicious Alcohol. It wasn't my skill that made it work, or anything, baka. I just did the thing. And it worked. Maybe I got lucky.
This does get me thinking, though. An IRL meetup would be interesting.
One of the best things I've ever made was a cyser, which is a mead fermented with apple cider. It was sweet like a unfermented cider but also like 10% alcohol.
I think each of the two yeast manufacturers sell a "sweet mead" yeast which is designed to top off a bit below a wine yeast, so you can get some residual sweetness.
For cysers I tend to default to the ale yeast US-05. It always finishes out pretty smooth and is rated for 9% so you get those residual sugars to keep if from going completely dry.
I've used that formula enough with sufficiently varied outcomes that I can attest that there is something more to it when it comes to wine. Mead is dirt easy though.
My understanding with wine is the specific strain of yeast makes a big difference with wine and that's why just using bread machine yeast or rolling the dice on wild yeast might go badly. Also you have to be careful with sanitation because you don't want bacteria to get into your batch and screw it up.