"These utterly unique honeys rank as the best I have ever tasted. American Tupelo, Kiwi Manuka, Australian Jara, Scottish Heather, and Tasmanian Leatherwood, move over! I no longer have any time for my Greek Thyme!! So completely deep, and exotic, are the kaleidoscopic flavour profiles these Portuguese honeys present, my sweet tooth has abandoned ice cream, chocolate, and hard-candy for a clearly superior force. As a wine writer, and long-time collector, I recognise an exemplary palate when I taste the evidence. Well done, Wild about Honey, don't ever become civilised!!! "Dominic
.It has been a while since I ventured back on to this blog, yes, my aversion to all things digital has been a driver (or lack of it) but it's been a crazy year, moving home, changing our entire production setup, emptying the warehouse, just to name a few of many tasks to get from here to there.....so excuses and apologies made, let us proceed.
Summer is the time when we sell the least and buy the most, the majority of all honey is harvested from spring to the end of summer and purchased during that time. It is still the most fun part of the work. Out on the hunt for new bee-keepers, revisiting old ones and of course finding and tasting honey. A most favourite occupation. Especially when things exceed expectations.
So a brave new season beckons and first, the good news is that despite tougher conditions, we met a couple of new beekeepers and we have some truly wonderful honeys to offer. Rich, dark, highly aromatic Algarvian heather, superb complex dark wildflower honeys, robust resinous Eucalyptus, delicate and floral Wild Lavender, velvety Oak rich mountain honey, a superb crop of the mighty Arbutus and some more surprises coming by the end of Autumn, which will be announced closer to the time. Most of the new honey becomes available through the autumn as old stocks run out. There is no exact moment when this happens, it just takes its own sweet time.
Challenges
For the most part the last few years have been incredibly challenging for beekeepers and bees. Mostly climate driven, although the north and centre of Portugal now also have to contend with the Asian hornet menace, a truly horrific and savage predator that decimates the gentle honeybee populations. Spare a thought for Beekeepers who this year have regularly been reporting huge losses.
The Climate situation is now it seems, permanently changed and changing. The temperate zone of the world, the wonderful mid 30 latitudes around the planet, (think California, Portugal ,the entire Mediterranean and Levant, the fertile crescent) which cradled civilization as we know it and has been the moderate, nurturing, fertile growing zone for us humans is being encroached upon in such a way that we now experience, more and more extremes instead, the "sattvic" centre ground is literally being lost to climate extremity the world over, droughts, extremes of temperature and erratic rainfall patterns are now the new normal. Not unlike the the human world where the moderate centre ground is giving way to extreme ideologies. In purely physical terms this is somehow inevitable as the moment that precedes a new equilibrium from one state to another is presaged by extreme change, as potential turns kinetic.
We no longer can choose to mitigate or adapt, we have to do both and more to survive and I am not talking about corporate and governmental greenwash like carbon taxes and offsetting your flights by paying some rapacious corporation to plant eucalyptus trees. I humbly suggest looking at the work of all these incredible people.
Charles Eisenstein https://charleseisenstein.org
Allan Savory https://www.savory.global/
Walter Jehne http://www.globalcoolingearth.org/regenerate-earth/
The BXT Update
Nearly three years and three months ago, one of those changes of state occurred albeit in the political sphere, and we have been in the twilight zone ever since, unable to plan, to move, to build, to consider even how to proceed at all. Like trying to hit a sub-atomic particle, blindfold, with a hammer. The only reason Wild about honey has survived in the UK thus far is that we made the only strategic decision we could and went to Europe instead and now have people enjoying our honey in Holland and Ireland and very soon, Belgium. Sadly after holding our prices steady for three years, we have now been forced to raise them as we cannot absorb any more of the losses from the devaluation of sterling, the costs we have already incurred and the general loss of consumer confidence. Still as long, fingers crossed, we don't have a calamitous crash out of the EU, we expect to be bringing you the very best honey for years to come.
XXR
Dear Friends and fans of the exquisite Carob Honey, we have some good festive news.
As we have mentioned before, the new pattern of overly long hot dry summers well into October and erratic rainfall patterns has almost put an end to the production of Carob honey. What little there is, is often kept by the beekeepers or not of very good quality.
After months of disappointment and continual searching we have managed to locate 90kg of the highest quality pure Raw Carob Honey. The Real Good Stuff. Thick, Black, Rich and outrageously good, not to mention about as rare as unicorn tears.
There is only a very limited amount so it will only be available here online and we are limiting individual orders to three kilos an order. It is also more expensive for obvious reasons.
Raw Carob Honey is on its way to England as we speak and will be available from next week on Tuesday the 11th of December
We will update the website on the weekend to accept orders, which should reach you hopefully by the end of the week, or the following week should there be Christmas post delays.
Earlier this summer I had the chance to attend the first of a three part honey sensory analysis course conducted in Bologna. ( I know it sounds like a jaunt, but trust me it was back to school and nose to the grindstone). Over 4 days an international group of beekeepers and honey professionals were thoroughly immersed in the world of honey. A fellow attendee, Beekeeper, Peter Lewis, Chief Hives & Honey Steward at the Great Yorkshire Show, as invited and appointed by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society.Pennines, penned this wonderful article which captures those 4 days perfectly.
