Getting Better All the Time ... January 28 2018

When people ask me if I'm an expert in all the food/drink items I have books for, I often joke that "I'm more of a blue belt. I know more than your average person about all of them, but that's also enough to know I don't know everything."

Thankfully, I know people that do know everything, and that's an awesome opportunity for me to learn and improve, two things that are very important to a one-man operation. Sometimes that growth even leads to refinements of my books.

As an example, shortly after launching my 33 Meads book, I got some further feedback on its flavor wheel. Katie Heyn, formerly of the much-missed Mead Market here in Portland, had a few ideas for me after judging the 2016 Mazer Cup, which is basically the Oscars for mead.

She felt the flavor wheel was missing something to cover more full-bodied meads like buckwheat or fall honey meads, which tend to have a fuller, nuttier flavor. 

In my own sampling, I realized I wasn't encountering tropical fruit flavors in mead as often I thought. And with more aged meads, pyments (grape mead) and melomels (fruit mead) available, the "fruity" section of the wheel was missing some low notes, the darker fruit flavors reminiscent of plums, red cherries and figs.

And because I'm the decider, I made a new edition, which you can see for yourself, above. It's available today! The new version is on the left, and the first edition on the right.

I make these kinds of subtle improvements to books from time to time, which you may have noticed ... or not! I'm working on some small changes to my coffee, chocolate and tea books that will come out soonish. Best to follow @33BooksCo on Instagram and Facebook and see when new editions debut.