what fruit is in there? or is that something else?

Blueberry, Strawberry, Cranberry, Blackberry and Pomegranate

is mead hard to make? Id heard that the honey is sort of hard to render alcohol with

Na! who ever told you honey is hard to make into alcohol does not know what they are talking about. You could make a mead from doing this.

1 gallon of water
2.5-3.5 pounds of honey

^^^ That is called a must and is a base for all meads! Super easy! all you have to do is dissolve the honey into the water and add brewers yeast. (use a wine yeast as it's tolerant to higher alcohol %)

Easy, great tasting mead after 4-7 months

1 Gallon of water
2.5-3.5 pounds of honey
2 Whole cloves or 1/2 tsp of ground clove
1 stick of cinnamon
25-30 raisins
1 pack of Wine yeast
fruit or berry's

1) Put water and honey into a pot and bring to 160°f hold for a few minuets. Pull off the stove and let cool.

2) Clean and wash your fruit and jug. (scrub the rind if your leaving that on) if you can get it use a bit of Starsan sanitizer to kill of any lingering germs. home brew stores have it along with commercial stores for restaurants.

2b) if using fresh berry's just wash them. Cranberry's need to be cut in half. If using froze berry's, just toss into the jug as no prep needed.

3) As your Must is now cooling for a bit, you cut up and add your fruit or berry's to your 1+ Gallon jug. (use your judgement on this. I put about 1/10 to 1/15 of my total jugs volume worth of fruit)

4) Add the Raisins, Clove and stick of cinnamon to the jug. (DO NOT USE GROUND CINNAMON!!! Will screw with the flavors!!!)

5) Once your Must is warm not hot you can add it to your jug. Tada! you now are on your way to a Mead!!!

6) Add the wine yeast and shake to mix in the yeast. Your mead is complete!

7) Let it sit in a corner for 3 months then remove the fruit. let sit for 2 more months and its ready to be enjoyed. Mind you that you can start drinking it as soon as two months as the alcohol will be solid but the flavors will still be in the teenage stage. in other words the flavors are fighting and once they reach a young adult stage they mellow out and settle into a tasty beverage!

is there any way to make it dry tasting?

Leave the rinds on for fruit. it adsorbs some of the sweet flavor and makes it more dry tasting. other then that berry's use less honey, but you lose some ABV. it's all about how much the yeast ferments out.

I see, so how little of it remains or is active you mean? So would aging it make it more dry or just ensuring all the sugar was consumed?

Ive made beer before, and wine, but never mead, so Im trying to apply what I know it it based on winemaking, but its been years.

More of a beer then a wine

It's just like a beer but no 60 Min boil. you only need to hit 160° and hold for a few to kill microbes in your water as well as dissolve the honey.
the yeast needs to be a wine yeast as most beer yeast like US-05 will just die around 9% making your mead super sweet!
You have to decide what ABV your shooting for, the lower your ABV the less honey and less time it takes to ferment out and start to age.

The aging is just to let the flavor mature, getting it to be a Sweet, simi-sweet or a dry depends on the honey really. use less honey and more yeast so it ferments hard and you should get a dryer mead. I just like they way my Simi-Sweet comes out so I try to stick to it.

whats the ABV stand for?

Alcohol By Volume

Ie 5.8%ABV 14%ABV

thank you so much for explaining this to me, and for sharing your work and insight

Not a problem! It's a past time that is a blast!

Omg I wish I could taste that strawberry one!

MCFC I'll have some. Along with some of my Beer! :)