Animal and barnyard honey
Barnyard and leather. Rare, divisive, and almost always accompanied by malt.
5 honeys · flavour family
Honeys in this group
- Dandelion honeyLight amber · PronouncedSharp, pungent and unmistakably strong for a spring honey — a chamomile-and-hay aroma with an animal note behind it that fades as the honey ages.
- Hawthorn honeyLight amber · PronouncedStrong and slightly strange — marzipan and cut hay over a distinctly animal undertone that divides people sharply.
- Buckwheat honeyDark amber · IntenseMalt, molasses and wet straw, with a savoury, almost animal depth. The most polarising honey in general production.
- Carob honeyAmber · IntenseDark, malty and distinctly savoury with a fermented, almost cheesy note that people either find fascinating or cannot get past.
- Durian honeyAmber · IntensePungent, savoury and unmistakably related to the fruit — a sulphurous undertone over dark caramel. It divides opinion as sharply as durian itself.
Plants behind these honeys
- DandelionTaraxacum officinaleThe pollen is what makes it critical. It arrives when colonies are expanding fastest and have the least in reserve, and bumblebee queens emerging from hibernation depend on early sources like this one to found a nest at all.
- HawthornCrataegus monogyna
- BuckwheatFagopyrum esculentumGenuinely useful as a late-summer gap filler, and its speed from sowing to flower makes it one of the few forage plants that can be deployed tactically within a single season.
- CarobCeratonia siliquaStructurally important rather than abundant — a good nectar source at a time of year when a Mediterranean colony has almost no alternatives.
- DurianDurio zibethinusA short, intense and unreliable flow, worked in the narrow overlap between when the flowers are open and when bees are flying.
Guides covering these honeys
- Why honeys taste and look so differentEvery honey is around 80% sugar. Everything that distinguishes one from another lives in the remaining fifth.
- Why honey comes in different coloursHoney runs from nearly colourless to almost black, and the colour is set mainly by the plant. It correlates loosely with intensity, more strongly with mineral content, and not at all with quality.
- What is honey?Honey is nectar that bees have concentrated and chemically altered, then sealed in wax. Every property people notice about it — the sweetness, the keeping quality, the setting — follows from that process.
- What makes a honey strongStrong honeys are dark, mineral-rich and usually lower in sweetness than pale ones. Understanding which axis a honey is strong on tells you what to do with it.
- Which flowers make honeyBeing good for bees and producing a honey crop are different things. A honey crop needs a plant that flowers in enormous quantity, in one place, at one time — which most good bee plants do not.
- Spring plants for beesSpring forage decides how many colonies exist by summer. A bumblebee queen who cannot find pollen in March does not found a colony, and a honey bee colony without early pollen cannot build.
Other flavour family groups
Narrow it down further
- Honey finder
Which honey should I buy for what I actually want to do with it?
- Flavour selector
I like this taste — which honeys have it?
- Honey comparison
How do these honeys actually differ, beyond colour?
- Honey substitute calculator
How much honey do I use instead of sugar, and what else has to change?
- Storage guide
How should I store honey, and what do I do when it sets?