Chocolate Mk 2

You'll know from my first post that I tried to create a chocolate mead... and failed. So I started looking for other ways to infuse this popular flavour into the honey. I hunted for a while but couldn't find anything practical or useful. Adding cocoa powder or chocolate sauce would not work and I was still adamant on using the raw ingredient itself. It wasn't until recently, and by pure chance, that I was wandering through the city market and stumbled upon a guy selling chocolate wine. Naturally I was intrigued and, after trying his wine and having a brief chat with him about brewing, he hinted to me that he used the cocoa bean and used vodka too... perfect! I now had a method to research. I wanted to know how vodka could be used to pull out flavours from various items and stumbled upon this link: http://www.wikihow.com/Extract-Mint-Oils-from-Leaves.

I thought I'd try the same and got some jars and experimented with mint too just like the instructions gives, lemon balm and cocoa beans. They were washed, and sealed in separate jars and left for about 2 weeks before I checked them again. I noticed the leaves nearer the top of the jars were turning a strange brown colour and the smell from the jars was being affected as a result. These leaves were removed and the jars left a little longer. After the full time I strained out all the leaves and smelled and tasted the liquid. The mint was not bad but not amazing either. I think the browning from the first leaves has tainted the liquid from what its' true flavour should be. The lemon balm mixture was a disaster... the liquid turned brown and smelled of what I can only describe as evil. Finally the cocoa beans I have still left due to starting them slightly later from waiting for the beans to arrive. The beans have so far swollen with the vodka and the liquid turning a wonderful chocolatey brown. Things definitely look promising in the goal for chocolate mead!