California Wildflower honey

Carmel Honey Company

First there was honey. Then clover honey. It was all so simple once.

Now when selecting a bottle we must consider the different floral attributes of all the single-varietal honeys available. That’s not a complaint – variety is great, but what if you need a nice, genial orange blossom and all you have on hand is a dark, brooding buckwheat?

Carmel Honey Company’s Jake Reisdorf bottles specific versions, of course. But he also allows some bees to run wild. California Wildflower is a “polyfloral” – his word – that varies according to whatever meadow grasses the bees find. In this case, the resulting honey offers golden rays of sweetness, like a familiar clover style. There is, however, a bitter streak tipping between percolated coffee and earthy sorghum. More pronounced on the finish, this dark side frames intricate strokes of cola and toffee.

So it has a bit of everything – sweet and sullen, dense like burnt umber in color, but not at all heavy. It’s suitable for daily use, but also has an artisanal complexity.

The bees know what they are doing, after all.

CARMEL HONEY COMPANY, Ocean and Mission #118 (Carmel Plaza), Carmel; 700 Cannery Row #Q, Monterey. 687-8511, carmelhoneycompany.com