If I were you, I would try to brew it with exactly the same recipes and procedures of another mead you made with a different honey, and then compare, and try to take maturity effects into account. A rule of thumb I've read, but haven't thoroughly tested, is that darker honeys tend to be stronger in flavor and take longer to age to maturity. I have found that darker honeys are stronger in flavor.
Tupelo tends to be pretty strongly flavored for it's light color, and matures rather quickly.
First, I boiled a few pints of water with the basil leaves, to make a tea. The temp was right about 150F at that point, so I let it sit for a few minutes to pasteurize. I covered the pot, and put it in a sink filled with ice water. About 20 minutes later it had cooled to about 60F, and I transfered it to a 1-gallon jug which had the dregs from a dandelion wine in it. The dandelion wine was the fourth or fifth reculturing of a yeast I've been using for about a year now.