Sometime in between the holidays, I'll organize another major gathering (perhaps with a tasting?) where we can brew something dark and perhaps even the whole hive mead I keep threatening.
Update: Well, not so much update as addendum, and that for a specific reader...
c_m_i, this is the page I mentioned in passing that sells oak products for conditioning. It looks like the bourbon oaking is something we'll have to do in secondary, but it does seem to have promise. 