Holiday Honey Tasting – A Trendy Way to Entertain Guests
Folks are always looking for new ways to entertain their holiday guests, and a Holiday Honey Tasting is unique and trendy.
The first thing to consider is your serving dishes. Honey shows up best when you place it in a white container, and I suggest ramekins, small dishes, or a white sectioned serving platter. The above photo courtesy of Mistress Beek’s website illustrates how well honey shows up against a white serving dish.
Typically, you will also need lovely glasses to serve sparking water and juice drinks, platters for accompaniments, spoons, tooth picks, small plates, and napkins to complete your service.
We have found that a cheese platter works very well during a honey tasting. We suggest that you include at least three cheeses:
- a favorite blue cheese to balance nutty-flavored honeys
- a hard cheese such as Parmesan to support herbal-flavored honeys
- a soft cheese such as brie to enhance citrus honeys
We also put together a tray of artisan bread cubes and plain crackers. These foods are taste neutral and won’t interfere with guests savoring the honey. The final food tray we put together for a Holiday Honey Tasting is for fruit. Typically, we include apple or pear slices, grapes, dried apricots – whatever fruit you enjoy drizzling honey on works fine. Some other additions you might try, if you have a large crowd, is a cured meat tray and a bowl of Greek yogurt. The saltiness of the cured meats and the sourness of the yogurt are both great contrasts to the honey and bring balance to your palate. Some honey tasters also enjoy a dish of nuts or a honey-based dessert such as baklava as a part of the experience.
As far as beverages are concerned, sparkling water, high quality drinking water, or sparkling cider are your best choices. These drinks are palate cleansing and are fairly neutral tasting. If these are served in a beautiful glass, these beverages can be quite festive.
For the beginner, we suggest that you start out with at least three honeys. Our Honey Tasting Set is perfect for this purpose, as it includes Sourwood, Tupelo, and Wildflower Honeys. These three honeys give a unique contrast for the novice honey taster. Adding Orange Blossom Honey for its citrus notes would be an excellent choice, too.
As you can see, Holiday Honey Tastings can be quite versatile. From an intimate honey tasting as an appetizer course for your holiday meal to a large Holiday Honey Tasting event for your family and friends, you can have a unique and special celebration!
Wishing you all smooth, easy, and joyful holiday preparation,
QueenBee
