Classic Sekanjiban
April 29, 2016
I thought everyone knew how to make this one, but it seems like people want the recipe I use, so I’m obliging. 2 cups sugar 1¼ cups water ½ cup red wine vinegar 4 to 7 sprigs of mint Put the sugar in a medium pot, and add the water. Stir so its not […]
Sakura circlet
November 2, 2015
Technically, since I have my Award of Arms, I have the right to wear a circlet. Once, a long time ago, I had a thin copper one that I would occasionally wear. One move, it got bent a little too far and broke, and not really ever seeing anything I liked, I never replaced it. […]
Clovingly Sweet
November 2, 2015
Who says you have to use cloves sparingly. New year, new mead, and Tarou and I decided to do separate batches. For Tarou’s new mead of the new year, he decided to go with Desert Honey and cloves, with the ratios based on his previous Sweet Mead. 17 gm bottle of Whole Cloves 4.5 lbs […]
Strawberry Blonde
November 2, 2015
In fine tradition, new mead for a new year. This year Tarou and I decided to do separate batches, based on the recipe for his Sweet Mead. I decided to use raw honey and strawberries. 2 lbs frozen strawberries 6 lbs Aunt Sue’s Raw Wild Natural Honey 14.5 cups hot water 1/2 tsp Red Star […]
Tarou’s Sweet Mead
November 2, 2015
Another year, another mead. After the first mead was good but dry, this time Tarou decided to try for sweeter. Out of my own curiousity, instead of clover honey this time I got orange blossom honey mostly because I personally like the flavor better. 5 lbs orange blossom honey 1/2 tsp Red Star yeast 12 […]
Aki Ume and Ume Cider – All the Ume!
November 2, 2015
So once upon a time, I had this idea of making plum wine. So I looked up how you make plum wine, and found out that it was sadly pretty boring. Umeshu is its proper name, and it isn’t wine at all, but fruit in distilled liquor. So if one had access to ume, one […]
New Bottles
November 2, 2015
While the blue bottles are awesome, we discovered they are really best for sake and other large quantity things. For stuff like cordials or liqueurs or even mead, if we don’t make a whole lot, one full blue bottle is a lot! So we found these awesome screw lid oil bottles, and, being that I […]
The Infamous Cloak
February 21, 2015
So as many know, we have these incredibly awesome cloaks we take to events. After many years of adequate cloaks, blankets and extra layers of clothing, we decided that what we really needed was one good, warm, nice cloak each. We decided on the Moroccan Burnoose pattern, which is a full half circle, made of […]
Aerial Target Launcher
February 21, 2015
The last target from Starkhafn Anniversary 2014 was our ‘birds’, the blue foam disks you see in this awesome device. We saw it at Estrella 2013 and oohed and aahed, but the price was just too much for us to handle. Instead we took pictures and had designs to make our own with the […]