Fructose

Definition

A simple sugar making up roughly 30 to 45 per cent of honey. It is more soluble than glucose, so a fructose-dominant honey resists crystallisation — acacia and tupelo stay liquid for years for this reason. Fructose also caramelises at a lower temperature than sucrose, which is why honey browns faster than sugar in an oven.

Honey records that discuss this

• Acacia honeyClean, light and sweet with almost nothing in the way. The honey to reach for when you want sweetness without a flavour opinion.
• Clover honeyWarm, mild and rounded — sweet with a faint cinnamon-and-hay note underneath. The taste most English-speaking readers picture when they read the word honey.
• Rosemary honeyDelicate and softly aromatic — floral first, with a thin thread of resin behind it that tells you where it came from.
• Rapeseed honeyVery sweet, very mild, faintly cabbage-like when fresh and cleanly bland once set. Texture is what it has instead of flavour.
• Tupelo honeyButtery and clean with a pear-and-green-apple lift, and a long soft finish that never turns cloying.
• Ivy honeyStrong, faintly bitter and distinctly herbal — closer to a dark honey in character than its pale colour suggests.
• Sage honeyMild, clean and slightly herbal, with a heavy silky body that is more of the experience than the flavour is.
• Gallberry honeyMild and clean with a soft floral warmth and a faint bitterness on the finish that the name hints at without quite delivering.
• Huajillo honeyVery delicate and clean with a light floral sweetness and almost no aftertaste — a honey that stays out of the way.
• Vitex honeyVery clean and mild with a light floral sweetness and a faint fresh herbal lift on the finish.
• Sourwood honeySpicy and aromatic — anise and clove over a caramel base, with a dry, almost tannic finish that stops it being merely sweet.
• Blackberry honeyWarm, mellow and gently fruity, with a soft jammy note and a hint of the fruit without any of its sharpness.