Anyone use these honeys before?

[WildSeedGrrrl]

So I recently acquired a gallon of avocado blossom honey and 5# of basswood honey. Has anyone every worked with avocado blossom before. I won't use the whole gallon for anyone recipe, so I can experiment with lots of different things.

Any suggestions?

 

[mmadmikes1]

Never used either but make sure to keep me in the loop with how the honey works for you. Cause I know you will use it no matter what any one here says.(addiction)
Suggestion: Stick your finger in the honey and let you taste buds tell you what you think would go good with it. If it is a very strong tasting honey, I would make a straight up Honey mead and let it stand on its own. If it is mild, don't use anything overpowering with it. Light fruits of berries, or a lower amount of fruit, going for the hint of outcome. Have fun

 

[WildSeedGrrrl]

The basswood is so light, with lots of citrusy tones that I'm tempted to made a small 1 gallon batch of mead with it and use the rest with a pilsner beer base and some light aroma hops. Depending on how the mead turns out I might just leave that honey for some fruit meads later this summer. The Avocado blossom honey is really pungent and earthy, you can taste avocado in it. I wouldn't want to drink it straight up as a mead, it has such an odd flavor to it but I think I will still do a 1 gallon batch. The rest is going in an Oktoberfest sort of beer base. The flavor reminds me of those styles of beer. Will keep you posted though.

 

[WildSeedGrrrl]

A picture of the honey (Ihope it attaches...)

 

[fatbloke]

The basswood is so light, with lots of citrusy tones that I'm tempted to made a small 1 gallon batch of mead with it and use the rest with a pilsner beer base and some light aroma hops. Depending on how the mead turns out I might just leave that honey for some fruit meads later this summer. The Avocado blossom honey is really pungent and earthy, you can taste avocado in it. I wouldn't want to drink it straight up as a mead, it has such an odd flavor to it but I think I will still do a 1 gallon batch. The rest is going in an Oktoberfest sort of beer base. The flavor reminds me of those styles of beer. Will keep you posted though.

From your picture, I'm presuming that the one on the left is the Avocado - which I understand is quite dark, not unsimilar in appearance to US Buckwheat honey. While the one on the right would be the Basswood ? which looks like it's been "creamed" (processed so it's set solidly, but returns to runny once it's heated).

Personally, I wouldn't waste honey in Beer. There's too many choices, with variations of normal beer making ingredients without using honey that can be made into excellent meads (of various types).

We can't get Avocado here, and the only buckwheat I've got/tried is Polish in origin. Still very distinctive in appearance, flavour and aroma, but not as dark as some I've seen pictures of from the US.

 

[WildSeedGrrrl]

The basswood honey had crystalized and it hadn't been processed. The color is pretty translucent. I like meads and I think they are nice way to just be able to isolate the flavor, but I like honey in beers probably more than just straight up meads. As for buckwheat honey, I'm not sure what yours are like but even here depending on where the bees gather, there are some real differences in the flavor, even with that very distinctive odor.

 

[Wade E]

Never used either although Ivetried some mead with Basswood and was delush. Tried to buy some from an Apiary but they ran out so ended up with Gloden Blossom.