Hot honey

Definition

A honey-based preparation in which chilli heat has been extracted into a runny honey, commercially by dosing a standardised chilli extract and domestically by steeping dried chilli in gently warmed honey. Sold and used as a finishing condiment on salty, fatty or charred food. Capsaicin dissolves poorly in a sugar solution, which is why infusion is slow and uneven and why commercial products are formulated rather than steeped. Also called chilli honey; 'spicy honey' is a looser synonym that sometimes covers warm-spice infusions as well.

Where the word gets used loosely

Frequently described as a type or variety of honey, which it is not. Honey varieties are named for the nectar the bees collected; hot honey is named for something a person added afterwards, and no bee visits a chilli. Under the Codex standard and the EU and UK honey regulations, which allow nothing to be added to honey, it cannot be sold as 'honey' at all.

Guide records that discuss this

• Hot honey and infused honeyHot honey is not a kind of honey. It is honey with chilli in it — a prepared food, made after the bees have finished, and one that behaves differently enough from plain honey that the usual reassurances about keeping do not all carry over.

Question records that discuss this

• Does honey help a cough?Yes, within limits. In children over one year with an acute cough, honey reduces cough frequency and severity and improves sleep compared with no treatment, and clinical guidance in several countries names it as a self-care option. It relieves symptoms in an illness that would resolve anyway; it does not treat the infection. Never give honey to a baby under twelve months.
• What is hot honey?Honey infused with chilli — usually with a splash of vinegar, sometimes a little salt. It is a prepared condiment rather than a kind of honey: no bee ever visited a chilli, and the difference from acacia or chestnut is that a person added something afterwards. It tastes sweet first with a burn that arrives late and builds, and it is used on salty, fatty or charred food.
• Is hot honey real honey?The honey in it is real honey. The product is not honey in the legal sense: the compositional standards define honey as what bees make and allow nothing to be added, so a chilli-infused jar is a honey-based preparation rather than honey. It is also not a honey variety — acacia and chestnut differ because of what the bees foraged, hot honey because of what a person added afterwards.
• Does hot honey go off, and how should it be stored?Store it like the honey it was made from — cool, dry, closed, out of the fridge — and follow the date on the jar rather than the folklore about honey lasting forever. A commercial, strained hot honey is stable and dated. A homemade one containing fresh chilli or anything else wet is a short-life preparation, because the low water content that preserves plain honey is exactly what a wet ingredient undoes.