There are two types of honey out there, and one is predominantly found in stores. I like the other type.
Real honey is a luscious, creamy liquid full of complex flavor and even a little bite. Real honey looks a bit like hand cream. The good stuff will form tiny, tiny crystals that give the honey a thick, silky texture, almost like chilled butter. In terms of taste, it’s a revelation. You’ll never go back.
But the kind of honey you find in stores – the kind you can easily drizzle from a bottle – has generally been heated to death. This process gives it the clear, golden hue that has become the color "honey". Yet when you heat honey, you cook away the taste (not to mention much of the living nutrition). That’s why transparent honey is, in my view, the wrong type, lacking all the subtle flavors that make the genuine stuff so lip-licking scrumptious.
By the way, organic honey, lacking the traces of sulfa, antibiotics and calcium cyanide used in bee-keeping of old, tastes that much better. (If you suffer from allergies, try to find a local variety of organic honey – here’s why).
Scout out delicious, fresh, local honey at your nearest farmers’ market, or give Rare Hawaiian a go.
Image: limbte