5 Honey Gins Worth Buzzing About
These five honey gins are worth buzzing about
Farmers revere honeybees for their hard work pollinating crops and making honey, and now several gin makers are hopping on the honey train, using honey in distilling or at bottling to add flavor and texture to the traditional spirit. Honey gins tend toward a floral softness on the palate. The honey adds sweetness, but it’s more complex than sugary. A spoonful of honey can evoke a field of wildflowers, which brings a lot of additional botanicals to the roster.
Here are five gins made with honey that we recommend. They taste terrific served neat or over an ice cube to show off their complexity and texture. The addition of honey gin also can take the following classic cocktails to an even better place:
Barr Hill Gin
90 Proof | $36
Barr Hill Gin
Caledonia Spirits started making Barr Hill Gin in 2011 thanks to a friendship between a beekeeper and a distiller. Their idea? The bees would collect the botanicals for the gin, and the raw local honey, added at bottling, would serve as the delivery vehicle.
“We are complete bee nerds,” says Matt Hovis, Chief Marketing Officer of Caledonia Spirits. “The true mission of the company is to support the pollinators and to connect agriculture to cocktail craft. [The founders] realized that the honey would meet gin’s botanical requirement from a technical standpoint, but from a flavor standpoint, even more so.”
Consumers often get confused and think that the spirit is actually distilled from honey. Barr Hill’s vodka is the team’s experiment in raw honey distillation; the gin is distilled from grain. The only botanical Barr Hill adds to the grain distillate is the requisite juniper.
An added bonus for this Vermont craft company is the variation from batch to batch. “While most companies like ours are ultrafocused on consistency and replicability, our [spirit] is dynamic,” Hovis says. “We don't know what the bees are going to bring us. They're free-range bees that get whatever they want to get.”
Pollinator Gin
90 Proof | $44.99
This gin is part of a line of bottlings from Pollinator Spirits, a New York state-based distillery founded by beekeeper-turned-distiller Claire Marin that produces whiskey, amaro, vodka, and gin. The small-batch classic dry gin is distilled from locally grown non-GMO corn and Marin's wildflower honey, then infused with juniper, lemon peel, orris root, and pollinator-friendly botanicals like coriander and angelica before being proofed down with Catskill Mountain spring water. The result is a gin with a round, herbaceous bouquet, hints of citrus, and a honeyed touch.
Plymouth Honey Gin
84.2 Proof | $36.99
Plymouth Honey Gin
The folks at England’s oldest working gin distillery have been crafting the iconic Plymouth Gin since 1793. The historic Black Friars Distillery launched its traditional seven-botanical blend as an alternative to the juniper-forward London Dry, and the soft, citrus, and floral flavor suits their latest bottling, a honey gin made exclusively for the U.S. market.
The addition of honey smooths and complements the dry original version, adding richness to the mouthfeel without leaning toward syrup or liqueur territory. It seems likely that master distiller Sean Harrison created this clear spirit squarely for us Yanks to add to Gin & Tonics and Bee’s Knees cocktails.
Silks Irish Dry Gin
84 Proof | $39.99
Silks Irish Dry Gin
For this modern gin from Boann Distillery in Drogheda, just an hour north of Dublin, the team briefly macerates flowers like elderflower and apple blossom before vapor distilling to preserve the delicate flavors of the blossoms, which are hand-harvested from the Cooney family orchard.
The orchard’s honey from the family hives is listed on the bottle as a botanical, and brings even more floral character to the mix. Serve this delicate gin mixed with some sparkling apple cider for a real treat.
Warner’s Honeybee Gin
80-86 Proof (varies regionally) | $40
Warner’s Honeybee Gin
Tom and Tina Warner, who co-founded Warner’s Distillery, have always proudly included farm-grown botanicals in their extensive line of unique gins. Many are flavored with local fruits and flowers like rhubarb, raspberries, and elderflower.
The distillery's Honeybee Gin honors the bees that pollinate the Warners' 16 acres of farmland in Northamptonshire, England. Distilled with over 20 botanicals and finished with a dollop of their honey, this bottling offers herbal and floral notes that softens a summery gin and tonic.