‘More than just sweet’: Honey’s surprising abundance of flavors

For Lee Hedgmon, life is sweet. She’s a master brewer and founder of The Barreled Bee, where she sells her barrel-aged honey creations.

“Honey, for me, has always been a snapshot of place and time. It’s like rings on a tree,” Hedgmon said. “It is literally a moment or a segment of chunks of time that it took the bees to pollinate, harvest, create all this honey. And it’s amber in an edible form.”

There’s an art to successfully combining the flavors of spirits and honey — both can have an exceptional range of flavor, and they don’t always gel. Hedgmon says creating the perfect pair feels a little like trying to matchmake people.

“‘Is this the perfect couple?’ Or am I going to see them in six months and be like, ‘Yeah, we just decided to be friends,’” she said.