Honey Journal Entry #17
Name: Pure Busy Bee Farm Honey
You can buy it: By calling the farm in Larkspur, CO at 303-657-5360 or by emailing them here. steven_lechner@msn.com. For a little more info go here.
Country: USA
Purchased: September 2008
Color: Amber
Flavor: A very pleasant nutty flavor with a strong hint of chocolate and raisins.
Consistency: Medium.
Fragrance: Chocolate honeycomb.
Notes: This honey was a gift from the Colorado Prager Group. Last month the group organized a debate between Dennis and David Sirota, a prominent progressive journalist who lives in Denver. What the Prager Group leaders pulled off frankly astonished me. They conceived, organized, staged, and publicized the event all on their own. I don’t think I can adequately describe what this entails. There are many moving parts to these kinds of events – arranging the venue, ticket sales, publicity and so on. It’s a daunting task for full time professionals.
The debate was a smashing success. SRO as they say on Broadway. 1500 people attended. If it sounds corny to say that the Colorado Prager Group showed the “can-do” spirit that makes this country great, then so be it. They made believers out of me.
They even managed, among all the chaos, to send Dennis home with some honey. This one with the very unprepossessing name of Pure Honey from Busy Bee Farms in Larkspur, Colorado (half way between Denver and Colorado Springs) is a very soothing, rich, but not overwhelming honey perfect for every day consumption. How soothing? If I had a sore throat this is the first honey in my current collection that I would turn to. With winter coming on, you might want to have some around.
This is the one year anniversary of the Honey Journal. I’ve done 17 entries so far. I have sampled honey from 10 different countries and 7 different states. Every country in the world, every county in the USA produces honey, so there are a lot more to try. Some honeys are more complex than others, but it’s not like tasting wine where one is sublime ( 90 on the Robert Parker scale) and one is mediocre. First, I only taste pure, organic, unrefined, unprocessed honey – the real stuff. No homogenized mass produced supermarket honeys for me. Second, I only review what I like. In other words, they’re all good, but they’re all different. The biggest kick I get out of this journal is noting how different honeys from different parts of the country and the world have their own distinct flavors, fragrances, and consistencies.
This week is also the beginning of the Jewish New Year. Last week was Rosh Hashanah, this week is Yom Kippur. It seems appropriate to note that honey is God’s food. The phrase “the land of milk and honey” is a description of the Promised Land. It appears 16 times in the Bible. Honey on its own is referred to 55 times. One tradition of Rosh Hashanah is to dip a slice of apple in honey and wish each other a sweet year. On behalf of the Honey Journal, that’s what I wish for all of us.