Sweet Swamp Honey

Say "swamp" and either alligators or bogs come to mind. Yet honey is also a "swamp thing" and bee keepers are wading through not only marshy land but bad weather conditions to harvest it. Why do they do it?It's a lucrative market for it and aficionados crave it.

Kim Severson,a regular contributor to the New York Times Food section, traveled down to the Georgia and Florida Panhandle swamps for this fascinating article. These dark and murky places yield up a sunny golden honey that is growing in popularity. it comes from bees harvesting the tupelo gum tree that usually grows profusely along the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers. The tree's blooms are these little  pom-poms of frail, fragile flowers. because of this, Tupelo honey is one of the most expensive honeys out there. The cheapest is eleven dollars a bottle while the most is an eye opening twenty-six. Connoisseurs compare the flavor to first cinnamon and anise with finishing notes of jasmine and something citrusy such as tangerine rind. Eating one spoonful is impossible. Tupelo lovers usually have two or three of the light buttery gold syrup. What can be made with it? Namely biscuits (and it would be interesting to mix it into butter.) You can try it as a glaze for salmon or as an ingredient for dip for shrimp.It could work as part of a salad dressing , thanks to the sweet and tangerine taste.

Tupelo honey has always been considered the champagne of the honey. There are several reasons for this. One  is there's  only a small window of harvesting, namely three weeks. It just ended. It had been a bad one thanks to the trees being damaged back in October by Hurricane Michael, the first hurricane five to hit the US. wooden bee boxes were smashed to smithereens or blown away. Trees were bent , leaves were blown away. Blooms started five months early if they started at all. The land
where they grow is going to get scarce thanks to developers looking into housing. Then there is the battle between Florida and Georgia over water use. When all these factors kick in, the champagne of honeys will likely be the price of Dom Perignon. The Savannah Bee Company sells the stuff for 100 dollars a bottle, namely at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.Some of the companies, like Lanier run by the third generation cultivate the honey and sell it direct. Others sell it to Brandon Tai who pitches in to help make it. He also produces sourwood honey which has a flavor that hints of gingerbread and caramel. Some of the bees move around, thanks to beekeeper, Frederick Merriam Jr, move them to Maine to pollinate his blueberry crop after the Tupelo harvest season.Still, it will never be as reasonably priced as California based honeys.

Tupelo honey is a gourmet's treat. The harvest has been through a lot but if there are tupelo trees there will always be the treat.The expensive price tag is worth it,