By Ian Mackley
About 25 members spent a congenial afternoon tasting honey on a cold afternoon in December 2023. It was great fun. Thanks to the generosity (and possibly smuggling skills!) of Member donors, we were able to taste 28 different honeys, five of them blind, from North America, Europe, North Africa, SE Asia and Australasia.
What we learned about common beliefs about honey and the variety of people’s palates and preferences was very interesting. We asked tasters to rate the honeys on a sliding scale between ‘Vile’ and ‘Ambrosia of the Gods’:
- The top five honeys based on average score alone were: Aberdeenshire OSR, Ibiza blossom, Javanese forest, Sourwood (USA) and Avocado (Mallorca).
- The top three honeys based on numbers of ‘Ambrosia of the Gods’ votes, then average score were: Ibiza blossom, Avocado (Mallorca) and Scottish heather blend.
- The bottom three honeys based on number of ‘Vile’ scores then lowest average were: Manuka!, Organic Acacia (Aldi!) and Lombok Multi-Floral (Indonesia).
Here’s the full table ordered on average score alone:
| No. of ‘Vile’ votes | No. of ‘Ambrosia of the Gods’ votes | Total Votes | Average (max. score of 5) | ||
| OSR | Aberdeenshire | 1 | 10 | 3.70 | |
| Summer Blossom | Ibiza | 3 | 13 | 3.69 | |
| Javanese forest | Indonesia | 2 | 9 | 3.67 | |
| Sourwood | USA | 2 | 12 | 3.67 | |
| Avocado | Mallorca | 3 | 13 | 3.62 | |
| Heather blend | Scotland | 3 | 13 | 3.62 | |
| Sumatran Black ‘Kukusan) | Indonesia | 9 | 3.44 | ||
| Rosemary | Mallorca | 14 | 3.43 | ||
| Black Sage | USA | 1 | 12 | 3.33 | |
| Red Gum tree | Sri Lanka | 13 | 3.31 | ||
| Borage | Scotland | 15 | 3.27 | ||
| Orange | Morocco | 17 | 3.24 | ||
| Honey Show ‘22 liquid light (1st) | Scotland | 1 | 10 | 3.20 | |
| Colonsay Wildflower | Scotland | 1 | 15 | 2.93 | |
| Javanese Durian | Indonesia | 2 | 1 | 13 | 2.92 |
| Chestnut | France | 2 | 1 | 16 | 2.88 |
| Tupelo | USA | 9 | 2.78 | ||
| Sumatran Black ‘Rubee’ | Indonesia | 2 | 12 | 2.75 | |
| Tesco 75p | ? | 14 | 2.50 | ||
| Manuka | New Zealand | 4 | 2 | 13 | 2.38 |
| Lombok Multi-floral | Indonesia | 3 | 2 | 11 | 2.36 |
| Acacia (Organic) | Aldi ! | 3 | 12 | 2.25 |
In general we can conclude that:
- Cheap supermarket ‘possibly not honeys’ honey taste like golden syrup and don’t stand up against authentic honeys at all. Better packaging doesn’t make them taste any better!
- We rate our own local honeys – heather, OSR, blossom – highly.
- Tightly consistent opinions on some honeys but widely varying on others shows the difference in people’s palates. For example, four people rated Manuka ‘vile’ but two thought it ‘Ambrosia of the Gods’! Most thought it tasted horrible, so a triumph of marketing over taste.
- In a blind-tasting shootout between Chris and Suzanne’s ‘best in ADBKA Show’ honey and Ian’s ‘first prize at the Scottish National Honey Show’ honey, C&S’s remarkable minty honey edged the popular vote!
