Mad honey

Flavour and aroma

Aroma

bitter herb, burnt sugar, damp moss, medicinal

Flavour

pronounced bitterness, burnt caramel, an astringent grip, a tingling in the throat

Finish

Long, bitter and accompanied by a physical sensation rather than only a taste.

Intensity

Intense

Sweetness

Restrained — bitterness or acidity competes with the sugar

Bitterness

Pronounced

Acidity

Moderate

Colour, texture and crystallisation

Colour

Amber (85-114 mm Pfund)toDark amber (over 114 mm Pfund)

Reddish amber, sometimes distinctly red, which is where the Nepalese name red honey comes from.

On setting: Slow to set.

Texture

Thick but pourable; Runny

Crystallisation

Slow — months before it starts to granulate

Fructose-leaning and generally slow to granulate.

Typical composition

Moisture

16–21% (typically 18.5%)

Fructose

37–43% (typically 40%)

Glucose

28–34% (typically 31%)

Glucose-to-fructose ratio

0.68–0.88 (typically 0.78)

pH

3.6–4.5 (typically 4)

Electrical conductivity

0.3–0.9 mS/cm (typically 0.55 mS/cm)

These are typical ranges assembled across published work, not measurements of a specific honey. Grayanotoxin concentration is the only compositional figure that matters here and it is not routinely measured or declared. It varies by orders of magnitude between batches.

What these mean: the sugars and the ratio · moisture · conductivity · how each is measured

Where it comes from

Floral source

Chiefly Rhododendron ponticum and R. luteum around the Black Sea, and R. arboreum and related species in Nepal. Not all rhododendron honey is toxic — grayanotoxin content varies by species, region and season, which is part of what makes the risk hard to manage.

Origins

The Turkish Black Sea coast, especially the mountains around Trabzon, Rize and Artvin; the middle hills of Nepal; and parts of the Caucasus.

Origin pages

• Turkey
• Nepal
• The Himalaya

Resolved from both directions — origins this honey names, and origins that name it.

Harvest

April to June (northern hemisphere)

The spring rhododendron flowering. The most potent honey comes from the earliest part of the flow, before other nectars dilute it.

The bees

The bees are unaffected — grayanotoxins act on vertebrate sodium channels and honey bees have no comparable vulnerability. In Nepal the honey is harvested from the enormous cliff nests of Apis laboriosa, the Himalayan giant honey bee, by hunters descending rope ladders down sheer rock faces.

Usual processing

Pressed, Coarsely strained, Raw, Cut comb

In Nepal, harvest from Apis laboriosa cliff nests is done by hand from rope ladders, and the practice is under pressure from tourism, over-harvesting and the decline of the bee itself. In Turkey it is produced in small quantities and sold openly, at a substantial premium, mostly to buyers who know exactly what they are getting.

What to do with it

There is no culinary use for this honey and it should not be treated as food. Where it is consumed traditionally it is taken as a preparation in doses of a teaspoon or less, and the difference between that and a normal serving of honey is the difference between an effect and a hospital admission.

History and traditional use

Mad honey occupies a strange position in the catalogue: a product whose entire market rests on a toxic effect, sold as a health food, with a documented history stretching back two and a half thousand years. It is included here because it is real, widely sold online, and the single clearest exception to the rule that honey is safe for healthy adults — and because omitting it would leave a reader to find out elsewhere.

• Taken in small doses across the Turkish Black Sea region and in Nepal as a folk remedy for hypertension, digestive complaints and sexual dysfunction, and as an intoxicant.
• Recorded in antiquity: Xenophon's Anabasis describes a Greek army incapacitated by local honey in 401 BCE, and Pompey's forces were reportedly ambushed after being deliberately fed it in 67 BCE — probably the earliest documented use of a food as a weapon.

Traditional use records that people have done something, and for how long. It is not evidence that it works.

Claims about this honey