The way we are doing the leap year, is going to be a traditional mead. NO BOIL. Just use warm water so the honey will dissolve. We are using 3#'s of local honey (Local to wherever you are) yeast nutrient (per your package directions), Pasture Champagne Yeast and water to make it to 1 gallon. (Increase all ingredients to match your batch size). After Fermentation stops, in a month or so, we are racking to secondary (Transferring to a clean container) with 2 vanilla beans per gallon in the secondary. When it's all clear, bottle and wait till Feb 29, 2012.
That is basically it. The 3 main things with Mead are:
#1. Sanitation.
#2. Best Honey you can find.
#3. Time. (YOU MUST LET THIS STUFF AGE... maybe even for years!)
Other than that...It's pretty simple.