Honey Tasting!

Wren and I had the profound pleasure of hosting a honey-tasting event for our Brooklyn Beekeepers Meetup on Sunday.

Along with marvelous company from beekeepers and honeybee afficionados, the afternoon provided a sensory festival of textures and flavors for the palate, plus a spectrum of colors on which to feast the eye (we're talkin' serious eye candy here).The weather cooperated, too, sending personalized beams of sunshine to enrich the glorious visual effect of 20 or 30 different varieties from around the world. I've heard it said that bees harvest the sun, and one can't help but see the truth of this phrase when good light meets good honey.Participants brought honeys from the Nation of Brooklyn, Long Island, Connecticut, and down south—along with a global selection from: Nigeria, Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Spain, Italy, England, Australia, and Moldova. We tasted avocado honey, buckwheat honey, fireweed honey, acacia honey, early spring honeys, eucalyptus honey, Japanese knotweed honey, linden honey—and many others.Wren and I provided samplings of our Catskills honeycomb. Matthew made a wonderful treat: macadamian nuts soaked in honey. Our Meetup founder, John, generously provided some lovely mead. We paired the honeys rather freely with various cheeses, including gorgonzola and soft and hard goat cheeses. It was an intoxicating feast. Afterwards, a friend wrote that she felt she had "eaten the whole world today"—it did feel like that. Big fun!