London is no stranger to speciality fads. We’ve embraced coffee snobbery, had milk sommeliers and who can forget the water bar? Now, London is buzzing about honey. Urban beekeeping is all the rage, there are tastings, art installations and across the pond, we’ve spied our first honey bar…
Forget supermarket honey – these days it’s all about locally sourced, raw, single source varieties. Honey water is the new coconut water, ‘mead’ is the new wine and chefs have turned into beekeepers.
The capital has also been swarming with art related to the plight of the honeybee. No sooner than the closing of Jessica Albarn’s solo show ‘Creation’ (a conservation project to restore the habitats of two rare types of bee) were we drinking honey cocktails and trying rare nectars with honey sommeliers at Bompass and Parr’s ‘The Joy of Bees’, a part edible, part experiential, four-floor art installation that’s literally swarming with the insects. Missed it? Then head to Kew Gardens and check out the multi-sensory 17-metre Hive, designed by UK artist Wolfgang Buttress.
Next, we’re predicting a rise of mead bars. Sure, we’ve long spied honey-infused cocktails on many a London menu (White Lyan’s new cocktail menu includes a beeswax tequila and pollen concoction), but it’s in New York (Brooklyn, naturally) where the first tasting room and cocktail bar dedicated to the honey brew has opened. Welcome Honey’s. Make a beeline for inventive meads done all ways: infused, blended and in cocktails.
