Ancient Orange Mod Help for Noob

I've only made my first two batches of beer and already I have the itch to make some mead. Obviously I want to start out simple and the JAOM sounds like a great place to start. A couple of things I want to change out...

- Not a big fan of cinnamon and cloves - does this recipe have an interesting enough flavor with just the orange and the raisins? Would anyone recommend any less "spicy" spices/herbs? I have mint, sage, thyme, basil, and rosemary aplenty. To be honest, I'm more interested in imparting herbal flavors to the mead rather than fruity.

- I would prefer a mead of medium to off-dry sweetness. What yeast would be best for this?

I'll likely be making this stuff in 1-gallon batches - I like a well-made mead, but not often.

Thanks for dealing with my rank amateur questions.

The spices are "Optional' in the original recipe but personally I think they are required to help offset the pithy taste from the non-zezted orange peel. You can try it without them and see if you like it. The resulting product will be really sweet & fruity up front with a bunch of bitter on the tail end of the taste. If you want to have more herbal flavors then try making something like a traditional mead with propper technique rather than some of the bad habits from JAOM and steep some flavors in the secondary after the traditional mead has cleared. That kind of mead is called a Metheglin. Check around here and the GotMead web site and see if you find a fun Metheglin recipe you like.