The Great Dr. Seuss once said “So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.”   Take this into any context and it will prove you right every time. Today, we’ve it taken into the culinary world and will learn about the balancing act of pairing cheeses with Grampa’s Honey.

Balance is focused mainly on two ideas:

• Pairing two similar flavors that will enhance and provide depth to one another; OR
• Pairing two very distinct flavors that because of their differences, achieve harmony

Slice of Honey and Cheese Pairing

Clover Honey

Subtle and mildly sweet, Grampa’s Clover Honey is sourced of course from Sweet and Yellow Clover flowers in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Described as it “… will remind you of a summer wind cooling off a hot afternoon”, this  honey is versatile enough to use in a variety of dishes that call for honey. Unlike the usual clover honeys you know, this honey has a layered depth to it that brings out various cheeses, as well as not overpowering it.

Semi-hard cheeses such as Muenster or Gouda will balance Clover Honey due to the mild fruitiness of traditional Gouda. This honey will also evolve a nutty flavor on your palate and the finish will let the cheese shine. Tasted with the Muenster and you will find a sweet milk flavor, almost sugary but nor overpowering. We also tried pairing it with a hard cheese such as Parmegianno Regianno and discovered that Clover Honey had a tendency to bring out the saltiness of the cheese that went nicely with the sweet honey.

Chamiso Honey

Also sourced from the San Luis Valley in Colorado, this time from Chamiso “Rabbit Brush” flowers and known to the Native Americans as a plant highly regarded for its medicinal powers. As you taste this honey, aromas of citrus peels will develop and a finish of nuttiness (particularly Hazelnut) will bring it all together.

Pairing citrus with cheeses can be complicated, but sticking with a hard, cured cheese will bring you great results. Pecorino Toscano, due to the nuttiness of this cheese (similar to the nuttiness of the honey) create a harmonious balance when paired.

Dessert Wildflower Honey

A slight reddish tint in this flower will provide you will a look into what flowers it is sourced from: Ocotillo, Cactus, Broom Weed, Burro Weed, Desert Buckwheat, Desert Bird, Mimosa, and Mesquite.

Although a bit of smokiness comes off this honey, when paired with a soft cheese like Brie or Camembert, the smokiness combines to develop an earthiness flavored pairing. This honey is also layered with tropical fruit nuances such as oranges and starfruit and when whipped into creamy, soft cheeses elevate them to a completely different level of enjoyment.

White Honey

Also known as Creamed Honey, this is Clover Honey that has been crystallized under controls conditions, making it perfect for spreading on toasted baguette slices, scones and grilled banana bread. Although the same honey as Clover, the texture allows for a different flavor sensation to develop.

Grab a slice of ripened goat cheese (not creamy) and spread it on! The tanginess of the cheese, paired with the texture and sweet creaminess of the honey will be a great pairing!

Tamarisk Honey

The darkest of all of Grampa’s Honey, sourced from Tamarisk tree flowers near Socorro, New Mexico, along the Rio Grande River. This honey is reminiscent of molasses, dark beers, hickory, pine and the always welcomed flavor of umami (soy sauce nuances). When pairing, save this honey for last, as you would wines.

Ideally paired with blue cheese or chevre goat cheese, Tamarisk Honey is the pairing when two strong flavors combine to balance each other. If paired with a light flavored cheese, the honey will be overpowering, so sticking to stronger cheeses will be the best idea.

Tamarisk Honey drizzled over Blue Cheese

Stay tuned for Part Two of this Honey and Cheese Love Story…

In the meantime, check out the following shops for honey, cheese and more:

Beekeepers today are faced with an overwhelming number of challenges. Between pests, disease, and environmental factors it gets harder every year to keep a colony of bees alive and healthy. Most of the commercial beekeepers today are in an “all-in” game and feel that they cannot risk losing their bees by not treating them with chemicals for various pests.

In contrast, I have come to the conclusion that getting back to the simple and basic way that my grandfather and great grandfather maintained bees is the best long term solution.

Beekeeping in Chama, New Mexico

The first thing I noticed as a kid was the fact that in larger commercial beekeeping operation it is all about the amount of honey you can produce. I worked in the extracting room (where the honey is removed from the comb) as a child and fondly remember seeing many different colors of honey on various frames. I would always taste them before loading them into the extractor and try and guess the floral source from which they came. Later, after work, I would describe the color and taste to my uncle, and tell him what I thought it was, eager for his confirmation. It was then that I had the idea of keeping all of the honeys separate, which we painstakingly do today.

Our varietal honeys are born out of timing and careful placement of hives. While we obviously can’t control where the bees forage, we can put them within close proximity of certain blooming plants. In addition we produce several different honeys within a particular area as well. Since not all plants bloom at the same time we can remove honey from the hives prior to a second or third bloom of a different plant.

Every year’s crop is different. Different annual climates will make different plants bloom. We produce our light clover honey in abundance, but all of our other honeys change every year. We take the time (unlike most beekeepers) to keep the floral sources separate. So while we may only have 4,000 units of one kind of honey, we have multiple different varieties of honey and something new is always around the corner with the coming season.

We consider ourselves to be migratory beekeepers. We move the bees at different times of the year to keep them in areas with good forage. There have been some critics recently who claim that moving the bees is stressful to them and a cause of recent die offs. However, in 20 plus years of working the bees, I have never seen ill effects from moving bees unless done improperly.

Below are some pictures from two weeks ago in the mountain valley of Chama, New Mexico. Just across the Colorado border. We were supering the bees with more boxes because they had made so much honey.  The plant in the foreground is called Vetch or Loco Weed.  It is a good plant for bees in the spring. It was just finishing blooming. We use to make surplus honey from the Vetch but the dry condition have made the plant more rare and now the bees keep that first honey they make.

There is an old steam train that goes from Antonito, Colorado to Chama. It’s called the Cumbres Toltec Railroad. It goes over Cumbres/La Manga Pass one of the most beautiful passes in Colorado. I really enjoy the trip to Chama to work bees. We always see tons of wildlife and seeing the picturesque train chuggin up the pass is almost surreal.

If there is a trend for 2011, it’s tasting parties and to push it even further, Food and Wine Magazine listed “homemade honey” as a top trend in 2011, specifically starting in May. The following are guidelines, tasting notes, pairing ideas which will ultimately help you set the stage to host a Honey Tasting Party in your own home.

Hosting a Honey Tasting Party

Varietal Honeys

Start with the main ingredient: honey. You’ll want to showcase and highlight it at its prime so choose to serve and taste a reasonable amount. Consider tasting 4-6 varieties as to not overwhelm your palate. Consider purchasing varietal honeys from around the country that have specific flavors present.

After purchasing your honey, transfer each honey into a tasting container. This is where you can get really creative! You’ll want to find containers that highlight the color, clarity and consistency of the honey. Think small champagne glasses, cute ramekins, or you can even serve on small plates that offer dividers, such as these ceramic palettes. Have small plastic spoons for guest to dip in the honey.

More Than Just Honey

Not only will your party be about the honeys, but you’ll learn about great foods to pair with honey. When pairing foods and condiments, you are either searching for a perfect balance, harmonious flavors that complement each other. Other times, you want to shock you palate and present it with intense flavors that are balanced out with exact opposites.

Pairing Ideas for Tasting Varietal Honeys

Cheeses

• Blue Cheeses, such as Roquefort will be balanced out with a nutty honey, such as our White Honey
• Hard Cheeses, such as Parmesano-Reggiano, pair nicely with herbal honey
• Soft Cheeses, such as Ricotta and Burrata, go well with honeys with citrus undertones. Try the Chamiso “Rabbit Brush” Honey
• Stinky but delicious cheeses, such as an Époisses de Bourgogne can be paired with a honey with some muskiness such as our Colorado Clover Honey.

Bread and Crackers

• Great vehicle for honey, dipping bread into warmed honey is a simple pleasure. Taste some local sourdough bread with a honey that will pop, such as Grampa’s Tamarisk Honey

Chocolate

• Balance the sweetness of certain honeys with a dark 70% or more chocolate bar.

Charcuterie

• Smoked, Salted or Cured meats are a perfect choice when pairing honey because of their opposite flavors and each balancing each other out.

Desserts

• Sweet items should be prepared beforehand and served accordingly. Highlight not only the honey flavor, but play on the texture and viscosity of it as well. Some sweet treats to try: Baklava, Honey Caramels or Fritters in Honey Syrup.

Liquid Pairings

Not only can you pair honey with solid foods, you can also pair honeys with beverages. Use it as a natural substitute for simple syrup in drinks. Not only will you use much less, but your flavors will be heightened by the natural syrup. Showcase drinks with seasonal fruits and herbs, like mojitos and sweeten them with honey. Your guests will be surprised and you’ll even be improving their health. Here are some drinks to serve: Mojitos, Mint Juleps, and Sangria.

Party Set-up

• Glassware/Serving Pieces: Choose glassware according to beverages served. As for serving pieces, each guest should receive their own palette of honeys, going from lightest in colors to deepest in color.
• Have glass water pitchers for guests to clean their palates between tastings.
• Develop a Honey Tasting Notes worksheet or use this one to track your favorites, jot down perfect (or horrible) pairings and to take notes of flavors!

Honey Tasting Notes Template

Remember the party is about discovering your favorite honeys, pairings and learning about varietal honey as a new staple in your kitchen!

Our friends at Cured (a new cheese/gourmet food shop opening in Boulder this summer), recently helped host a Spring Harvest Dinner at Mateo Restaurant in Boulder, and they put together an impressive cheese plate – all with awesome Colorado ingredients, including our own Chamiso honey.

Cheese Plate with Chamiso Honey at Mateo Restaurant in Boulder

The plate was composed of Lamborn Bloomers from Avalanche Cheese Company, Dulcinea from Lark’s Meadow Farm, Leyden from James Ranch. Paired with Il Mondo Vecchio‘s Sopressate, MMLocal beets, Isabelle Farm‘s radishes and Grampa’s Gourmet Chamiso Honey.

Thanks Cured, can’t wait for the store to open!

This is the first official entry into the Project: Taste the Honey.

A backyard Denver beekeeper responded to me by Twitter about a month ago after I had asked if anyone knew a local wine sommelier who could be interested in tasting honey like it was wine. Not only did she (her name is Holly) know someone in the wine world (and we’ll be doing a proper honey tasting with them next month…) but she also stopped our booth at the farmer’s market to do a honey swap. Holly makes amazing Linden honey, which much lighter in color than even our lightest Clover – and tastes totally different from anything that Grampa’s Gourmet makes.

Below is a re-post (with permission) from her blog:

“An Organoleptic Tasting”

Grampa’s Gourmet White Honey is a blue ribbon cuvée of mesquite and clover honeys. Like a new bag of sugar, it has a faint aroma of feet to it. (Seriously, when you open a 50lb. bag of sugar, it smells like feet.) ANyway, made in part using the Dyce method, then whipped, it is a sublime textural experience. Reminiscent of freshly made marshmallows, it is softly sweet and would be delightful on strawberries, but alas those are out of season now. In lieu, I recommend it on a bar of dark chocolate.

Their Seasonal Honey is a vintage 2009 Chamiso, pulled from the honeyteca reserve. (Yes, I made up a word there.) Driving around Colorado, you’ll see its floral source, Rabbitbrush, blooming singly or in drifts across the Plains. It seems to be the only plant that can shine in this heat and drought. Similarly, chamisa honey glows golden in the Mile High sun. It has a hint of burnt caramel on the nose but it’s not in the least bitter. Mildly sweet with a medium body, it’s equally comfortable in a cup of tea or with a hearty dark bread. The perfect garnish would be a local charcutier’s version of lardo di Ardo.

The Tamarisk Honey is the darkest and most complex of the trio we selected. With notes of molasses on the nose, the flavor is assertive yet not overwhelmingly so. The earthiness, and slight grittiness, of this one makes it good for savory applications. We found it happily married with Maytag Bleu Cheese, even sans pears.

The chunk honey we traded in was from our 2010 Summer Harvest. Extremely pale amber and almost as clear as water, it has a woodsy aroma and a smooth, mellow start with a distinctively minty finish – the giveaway that the informing floral source was Linden. I take it in my daily coffee or tea, and despite the heat, the apitherapeutic effects are noticeable. A lot less sneezing than in years past.

“Project: Taste the Honey” is a result of many conversations I’ve had this summer – with people I meet at the farmer’s market, other local beekeepers, as well as lots of people who are just passionate about food.

There seems to be a real disconnect between what honey is (totally amazing natural sweetener with endless distinct varietal flavors) and what too many people think honey is (generic yellow sugar substitute that comes in a plastic squeeze bottle).

The truth is that there isn’t just one “honey”. There are thousands varieties, based on flower sources, regions, etc. Here at Grampa’s we happened to make about 5 of the varieties that are unique to Colorado and New Mexico.

I want to change the way honey is viewed in the United States.

I want people to think of honey more in terms of wine (with it’s own “gout de terroir“), and when buying honey ask questions like “where does this honey comes from?” or “which variety of honey is this?”

And I want you to discover the small batch, traditional beekeepers in this country who are having to compete with the industry that has standardized their product to be able to sell it as cheap as sugar.

I’ve got lots of ideas about how to breathe life into this project and here’s a list of some planned activities:

• Raising awareness of the project at the La Petite Soiree at BlogHer Food 10′ in San Francisco by doing a honey give-away
• Raising awareness of the project with the sad, sad people :) of #BHF10PP by doing another honey give-away.
• Doing a “honey tasting” with Denver back-yard beekeepers. Blog post coming soon…
• Doing a formal “honey tasting” with a wine sommelier and wine instructor at the Cook Street School of Fine Cooking in Denver. I think this will result in a short video.
• Reaching out to local restaurant chefs to develop proper “honey pairings” with cheese and wine or host a “honey tasting party”. More on this later…
• Tentatively planning a “honey conference” in Denver for Fall of 2011. More on this later…

I welcome any/all ideas you might have in spreading this message.

In my last post on varietal honeys, I listed lots of variations of honey based on the flower sources. But honey can also be unique based on where it comes from. The regional combination of flowers will affect the distinct flavor and identity of a honey.

Often it’s not even apparent which types of flowers the bees visited to make the honey, and the blend of flower sources will be different from hive to hive, even if the hives are right next to each other. And it’s the blend, that unique combination of flowers that defines the “vintage” of a regional honey: it’s unique to that place, that season, that year.

And the region can be anywhere – as long as there are flowers blooming. Southern France, Tuscany, New Zealand and Hawaii are some of the popular places to make honey (you can find these in your local gourmet food shops). Recently, there’s been an increased interest in urban beekeeping. Some people even think that urban honey makes better honey.

Grampa’s Gourmet honeys come from the beautiful San Luis Valley, in Colorado, as well as from as far south as Rodeo, New Mexico (our Desert Wildflower Honey is from there).

Here is a random assortment of links of some of US urban honey locations:

• New York Honey
• Denver Honey
• Boston Honey
• Chicago Honey
• San Francisco Honey (these guys pack honeys unique to the neighborhood of the city!)

Here’s an interesting honey company in Minnesota, and another one near the Glacier National Park.

Here’s a link to an amazing bee photographer who travels the world taking pictures of bee hives and their locations.

The variations by regions are endless!

Honey Bee on a Chamiso Plant in Colorado

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are hundreds (if not thousands!) of varietals in the world. Below is a short list with some of those most frequently found at retail (I compiled the list from here and here).

These are honeys that are monofloral – as opposed to those that are made from distinct combination of many flowers from a specific region – which I’ll write about in my next post.

One of the most common conversations we have with people who visit us at the farmer’s market is about the fact that not all honey is the same. It’s remarkable how many times after having tasted our honeys I hear the phrase: ”I didn’t know there were so many different kinds of honey!”

We feel that honey is often misunderstood and underestimated as an artisan ingredient in food.

In fact, there are more than 300 unique types of honey available in the United States (more than any other country in the world!), each originating from different floral source. And that number doesn’t include honeys that have a blend of floral sources, but have a distinct flavor profile based on the location of the hive (ex: downtown Denver).

To explain the variations of honey flavors I like to make the analogy to wine.

For wines, it’s all about the grapes. And the grapes used to make wine could take on different characteristics depending upon the French concept called gout de terroir, or “taste of place”. Terroir is what dictates the taste of the wine – and it depends on the geographic location, soil, the weather (was is a drought year?) – all of which gives each wine its unique, individual, complicated profile and personality.

The same is true for honey. A honey’s flavor profile will vary not only from year to year but also from hive to hive. The exact same field of flowers, if produced by two different hives that stand right next to each other, can bear honey that is completely different in color, flavor, texture, and aroma.

As long the beekeeper doesn’t mix all of the honeys together (and then heat/filter/process them), and instead uses traditional methods emphasizing quality and character (instead of quantity and homogeneity) – the complex regional variations come through in taste!

All Grampa’s Gourmet honeys have distinct “terroir”. It’s the flavors of the San Luis Valley in a jar. This region is an amazing place to practice traditional migratory beekeeping to produce varietal honeys because we have access to vast fields of very distinct floral sources to place our hives around.

"Our Taste of Place" San Luis Valley (picture via Gareth Llewellin, 2010)