One of the greatest things about staying at Honey Pie Hives and Herbals was sampling all the delicious concoctions that Bay and Gavin made. In fact, many of the things we sampled I had never tried before. The most exciting thing was to see the way they utilised ingredients and produce right under their nose. Bay and Gavin just seemed to have a real connection to their backyard, knowing each plant by name and knowing ways to use them. Some might call it “making something out of nothing” it’s not really ‘nothing’ though is it? It’s just all those things that are invisible to us until we actually look a little closer… Here are my top five:
1. Mead. Gavin (chief mead-maker) was testing and establishing new recipes for mead. Although we had already consumed a crazy amount of mead while staying at Spirit Hills, this was another experience entirely. The mead Gavin made was sweeter and more intense to drink. It was more like a Port, something to enjoy solo before or after a meal. Some fancy folks might even call it an Aperitif or Digestif. He also made a special type of mead which is like a beer-mead called a Braggot, made with hops, or another type of grain as a base. All of this he made with left over honey from the honey harvest.
2. Herbal Oils. So we didn’t eat these but we did get to make and try products that contained them. Bay makes these beautiful oils by filling a jar with a fresh herb and then covering completely with oil (she uses Organic Sunflower Oil). She leaves these outside in the sun for 6-8 weeks to infuse completely. While we were there we made two types. Darcy collected Plantain, which to the naked eye is just a weed, but it actually holds amazing anti-itch medicinal properties. I collected Yarrow which is an anti-inflammatory. Bay uses these oils to make healing salves, check these out.
3. Rowan Berries. I’d never heard of these but they are just so beautiful I had to share a picture. A friend of Bay and Gavin’s has a tree on his property and gave them a huge bag full of berries. Above is a picture of Darcy cleaning them up and getting rid of the leaves ready to make Rowan Berry Mead (named after the berry and also their 9 year old son Rowan). I must admit they were almost unbearably sour, but I think that will translate beautifully into mead.
4. Flavoured Honey. As it was honey harvest Darcy had the pleasure of bottling hundreds of bottles of honey. Honey Pie Hives and Herbals offers a great range of flavoured honeys. This includes, cinnamon, cranberry, ginger and chocolate. This process involves adding the particular flavour ingredient to crystalised honey prior to bottling. There are three varieties of honeys that the bees make all on their own: Wildflower, Lavender and Buckwheat. Generally if there is one type of flower en masse near the hives (i.e. Lavender or Buckwheat), the bees will be attracted to pollinate only that flower, creating a specific type of honey. If there are several varieties the bees will make a honey that comes from a variety of flowers. This is what Honey Pie calls “Wildflower” honey.
5. Shrub. Now this was an entirely new experience for me. A shrub is a concoction involving vinegar, sugar and some kind of fruit or vegetable or something to give flavour. The shrub that I tasted was a cherry bark shrub and it tasted like a cleaner version of Dr. Pepper. Crazy, I know. After Bay pruned her Cherry Tree she cleaned some of the twigs and then blended them up in her food processor! She then combined this with equal parts sugar and vinegar and let it hang out in the fridge for a couple of weeks. It sounds wild, but it was awesome. The best way to drink it is as a kind of cordial thing to add to cocktails or mocktails or beertails (it’s good with beer). She made a us a cocktail that we took to the beach using shrub, gin, lemon, elderberry juice and soda. Delicious! PV
the sociable weavers 