The loved one has started brewing mead. It's fun having an alchemy lab in one's kitchen, blooping away, and drinking the products of one's hard work. (Home brewing is legal in the UK as long as you don't sell the results or use distillation - in either case the revenooers come down on you like a ton of bricks, and in the latter case it's too easy to make methanol if you don't know what you're doing.)