Fun idea
completed the survey, hope it helps. Could be a recipie for "most" but My first question is, what do YOU enjoy? Isn't that what matters the most? ;-)
I enjoy way too many things and I have a bucket list of recipes I'd like to try. This survey actually helped me narrow down what I'd like to do next.
With currently 53 responses, the numbers are interesting. The first question was regarding your "go to" alcoholic drink of choice, and it was a pretty even distribution between wine, beer, and mixed drinks.
Despite the wide variety of tastes, some categories had people voting the same way.
For target ABV, there was an even distribution across 6-8%, 9-12%, and >12%. Not surprisingly, very few enjoy <5%
For desired carbonation level, the overall average was 2 out of 5. If I remove the votes for 0 (still/flat), the average is 3 out of 5.
For sweetness, the average was 2 out of 5.
66% of people said they prefer a balanced fruit level (as opposed to none, subtle aftertaste, or juice. you just want to drink alcoholic juice).
With fruit flavors, this was a multiple selection option. The top 3 were: Citrus (73%), Blackberry (56%), Peach (56%)
Top 3 spices/herbs/flavors: Fall Spices (73%), Vanilla (73%), Ginger (63%)
Despite ginger only being #3, it was the most common ingredient in "favorite flavor pairings". Lots of peach ginger, citrus ginger, lemon-lime ginger, and even an "anything with ginger". The other common ones were apple cinnamon and "pumpkin spice anything"
78% of people like a subtle oaking.
I phrased the oaking question's answers poorly, but 73% enjoy bourbon barrel aging. A better question would have been specific types of oak (medium toast french oak, etc), but the majority of friends who took the recipe would not have known what to put there, so I should have omitted this question.
So, after filtering out some of the noise and comparing to my bucket list of recipes, I've decided on trying out a citrus ginger hydromel. I'd like a heavy kick of ginger up front and then have the citrus balance it out. I haven't mapped out the overall plan in full, but I'll do something like this for a 1 gallon test batch:
Juice of 2 oranges, 1 small lemon in primary, reserve zest in freezer.
I'll have to check PH to make sure I'm in a good range, I may skip on the juice entirely and only go with zest in secondary, not sure how it'll pan out yet.
Make a tea by boiling fresh ginger
Orange blossom honey to about 1.06
Add water to half gallon, aerate vigorously
Add activated wyeast smackpack (not sure which i'll go with yet)
Top off the gallon with water.
I'll add potassium bicarbonate as well. DAP/Fermaid K at start, 1/3 and 2/3 sugar breaks.
Let it ferment dry, add orange/lemon zest and possibly candied ginger to get more of a ginger kick.
I'll cold crash, rack onto medium toast french oak, and age it for a bit. I'll then stabilize and back sweeten to 1.010-1.015 and force carbonate.
After I dial in this one, I plan on making a big 5 gallon batch and splitting into 5x1gallon for secondary to experiment with other additions. I just wanted to keep the flavors as simple as possible to start.
