From indiatoday.in
By Gagan Sharma
The world is in a ‘shaken and stirred’ mode, with cocktails turning heads and headlining bar menus with everyone eager to experiment. Breaking down the idea of a cocktail: a mix of spirits, often mixed with citrus and sugars, allows an examination of each part in its entirety. With increasing interest and exposure, there are growing debates about every element that makes your drink. While you can’t ignore the spirits, it’s the sugar that’s often at the centre of a long-standing parley—‘is honey any healthier than plain sugar’? Well, sugar is sugar, but who’s drinking cocktails for health anyway, right? Yet, there’s an uptick in the use of several varieties of honey in cocktails and conversations, and it’s Asia that’s setting global benchmarks. And championing this change, while spreading the gospel of honey, is the continent’s first meadery, Moonshine Meadery in Pune and bars like Bar Trigona in Kuala Lumpur, Asia Today in Bangkok, and, of course, Cobbler & Crew in Pune.
WHY HONEY?
If sugar is sugar, how can one make it better? The answer still lies with honey. Of course, there’s no biological benefit of switching to honey in cocktails, however, there’s the idea of sustainability, diversity, and community building, which barely comes at an additional cost. But cheaper isn’t always better; imagine your Old Fashioned made with Royal Stag instead of Royal Salute, or think of block ice becoming the norm instead of a cube or bullet ice which is now considered obsolete. You get the point.
Niks Anuman founded Bar Asia Today in Bangkok eight years ago as a non-supermarket project. He says, “We truly believe that all the good ingredients come from Asia, hence Asia Today. Wild honey was a big part of that thought and later it became everything that we do”. One of India’s finest exports to Malaysia, Rohan Matmary, is the Beverage Manager at the Four Seasons Hotel in Kuala Lumpur that homes Bar Trigona. It takes pride in showcasing only natural products across all their drinks. “Bar Trigona proudly uses only Malaysian ingredients. Trigona honey was widely used in tribal homes; we teamed up with farmers and refurbished their hives, which have multiplied over the last seven years. Now we use it across the hotel, making it a popular feature again,” says Matmary.
WHY HONEY IS RIGHT ON THE MONEY
More than just an additive to sweeten cocktails, Cobbler & Crew—a bar in Pune—was the first to completely run on honey. Mayur Marne co-founded the place and claims honey’s superiority for its varied textures, sweetness levels, complexity, colour, and application, over sugars. He claims guests have never asked to replace honey with sugar in their drinks. “They’re receptive to the switch, appreciate the improved texture, and the opportunity to explore different kinds of honey. We offer honey tasting which draws the guests further in and makes them see it as a diverse ingredient”, he shares.
The utility of honey is a study by itself —- source of the honey, its moisture content, how it’s stored, how quickly it ferments, and lots more. The majority of our honey knowledge comes from bulk, supermarket brands. And trust me, most of what we know is incorrect. I was born allergic to honey, only to realise I’d been consuming fake bottled honey all my life. It was only after tasting pure honey, I realised I wasn’t allergic to honey but probably to the chemicals used in a majority of the big-label brands. Whatever we’ve been fed has been a result of what works for corporate giants. For instance, pure honey never crystallises; wrong, all types of honey does. It shouldn’t ferment on its own, incorrect, much like all sugars, it does spoil too. Wild hives in the park in front of your house, or in the back alley is consumable. Apparently, not. Honey doesn’t mix with water, yes it does, and that’s how all bars make honey syrup or honey water to add to cocktails. The darker the honey, the better it is; not really. You get the gist. Thus, the utility of honey, for a professional, solicits as detailed an understanding as do whiskies, agave spirits, or wines. Matmary concurs: “Different varieties of honey have different characters. Trigona honey is like a whisky—complex, dark, with very prominent flavour. Since it ferments in the hive it can even have a funky, kombucha-like flavour”. Who would have thought.
Just like various style of alcohols, decoding the styles of honey is imperative. It is as diverse an ingredient as any other. Rather than looking at honey as a loosely grouped term of nature’s favourite sugar, it should be the title of a book worth reading. For now, Nitin Vishwas, co-founder of Moonshine, Asia’s first meadery, shares the cheat-codes. “The type of honey decides the end result. Multifloral honey gives fairly neutral flavours. If you want a citrus twang, turn to Mustard honey, for caramel notes, Sidr works well, and for just a dash of sweetness, there’s Acacia. There are other types of honey too that can be complex and experiential such as the ones from the Sundarbans, Konkan belt, and Mahabaleshwar”, he explains.
What’s more, shares Matmary: “As compared to sugar, honey offers a lower Glycaemic Index (GI)—a measure of how quickly a food raises blood sugar levels compared to pure glucose—delaying your inebriation quotient, thus allowing you to hold your liquor for a longer time and hence drink more”. I’d drink to that.
ADVOCATING FOR BEES
While these bee-advocates have taken matters into their own hands and made it easier for you to participate in this bee-and-honey revolution. Here are some points to ponder: There are 350 types of bees, but only a couple of species make honey. The more urban we get, their habitat disappears. Hence, it becomes imperative to take care of them, which is why “Moonshine started the concept of ‘Bee Hotels’. We install bamboo pipes in societies with flowering plants, which allows a safe-haven for bees, allowing them to cross pollinate”, claims Vishwas. Cobbler & Crew homes a bee hotel too. “We’ve installed one in our outdoor section. It provides shelter for bees during extreme weather conditions and in exchange, engages guests to further the conversation and understanding around their habitat”, adds Marne.
Bar Trigona goes a step further and actually encourages people to adopt a bee hive of their own. “We adopt a beehive, nurture and operate it for a year. Whatever is collected from that hive, we pack and store it for the guest to collect at the bar. It creates an emotional connect for them, for nurturing a living thing, and in turn, all the money goes to the farmer. We currently have 600 adopted hives, and that’s a lot!” claims Matmary.
In Bangkok, Anuman and his team bring people to the mountains, where they show them how honey is harvested. “It demonstrates to our guests how the environment and bees are in total sync. Our house project called the ‘Sanctuary Project’ provides a variety of stingless bee species (hives and boxes) to our edible flower suppliers/growers. In exchange for our bees pollinating her flowers, we get a chance to observe and learn about them at close quarters”, he shares.
Einstein once said ‘If the bee disappeared off the surface of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live’. If that’s the case, then it isn’t about cocktails, sustainability, price, a sweetener, or the texture of your cocktail. It’s about survival, doing the right thing for the environment, and for the next generation. And that’s a thought that you may want to raise a toast to.
