Honey is more than just a scrumptious treat for the senses. It is a medicine, a preserver of food and, throughout history, a gift given to and assumed to come from the gods themselves.
Before we had access to a bounty of processed sugar in our modern era, honey was the main method of satisfying a sweet tooth. Even so, it was hard-won, either wrested from wild bees or taken from hand-tended, cultivated hives. Both of those methods of harvesting honey include a lot of hard labor and certainly a few stings!
Honey is the combined effort of a ton of tiny little workers who gather pollen from more flowers, trees, herbs and grasses than we can conceive of. It is full of the essences of each of those plants, full of the water that the bees consume from streams and rivers and full of the resins from the tree saps on which they sup. Honey is a medicine, a delight—is it any wonder that we call each other “honey” and send newlywed lovers on their honeymoon?
Since honey is made up of flower nectar, pollen and tree resins, the ecosystem from which bees harvest makes a big difference in the flavor, texture and color of the harvested honey, and therefore, the end result of your mead. There are many varietal kinds of honey gathered from hives surrounded by a single, specific plant. Sourwood is a famous honey here in southern Appalachia. Raspberry honey is light and almost fruity, carrot honey is dark and tastes of malt and star thistle honey is sharp and complex in flavor.
Clover honey, orange blossom honey and wildflower honey are the three most popular (and readily available) choices for meadmakers. Raw, local honey is sometimes a bit more expensive, but it is good to support your local beekeepers and to know where the honey comes from.
