NYC Honey Day Coincides With New Raw & Unfiltered Honey Release

Raw, unfiltered local honey

At The High Line today, local beekeepers and artisanal honey purveyors celebrate the burgeoning NYC (and Brooklyn-centric) honey movement http://www.thehighline.org/activities/nyc-honey-day-at-the-high-line. The pop-up includes samples of local honey and a glass enclosed beehive so you can see the inner workings.

Coincidently, I was sent a sample of L.R. Rice Raw & Unfiltered Honey. The company works with local beekeepers around the country so you can get local honey. With the way my allergies have been this year, I am grateful to get any benefit available from eating local honey.

Or drinking. 

I decided the make a simple syrup with the honey, substituting honey for the usual sugar. For cocktails, I prefer a less sweet simple syrup, so I use a 1:2 ratio of sugar to water; 1 part sugar to 2 parts water.

With honey, which is even sweeter, I used a 1:3 ratio. I steeped fresh mint in the syrup, then used it in a mint julep that both helped beat the heat and included the antimicrobial and antibacterial properties of raw unfiltered honey.

The syrup was cloudy, since honey is thicker than water, so the cocktails were not the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. But they may have been the healthiest.

Maybe next week I’ll try kale and gin.

For the mint simple syrup:

1/3 cup honey

1 cup water

3 sprigs of mint

Heat water and honey in a small pot till boiling. Turn off, add the mint, cover and let cool.

Pour into a mason jar and refrigerate.

If you don't use within a few days, strain the mint out.

For the mint julep

Fill a shaker with ice. Add 2 shots bourbon, 1 shot mint syrup. Shake and strain into a martini or coupe glass.

Garnish with fresh mint.

Enjoy!

Feel Good About Your Food: The Real Co

The Real Co's Pink Himalayan salt

Buying organic food is great, but when companies like Walmart get into the organic food game, you have to wonder how much the local farmer is being helped.

The Real Co seeks to change that. 

This single origin global food company espouses the mantra “good comes from good.” It just launched with three products: Basmati Rice, Himalayan Pink Rock Salt and Organic Raw Cane Sugar. All of these are sustainably harvested from either a single farm or family with products that can be traced back to their exact origins.

The transparency in food origin extends to transparency in packaging- you can see inside each item.

The Himalayan Pink Rock Salt is handcrafted in the Himalayan Mountains and is a gorgeous contrast in color - I sprinkled it on white chocolate chip cookies for a sweet and salty effect.

The Organic Raw Cane Sugar dissolves in cold liquid as well as hot, so it is ideal for cocktails when you've forgotten to make a simple syrup or for sweetening iced tea.

The third product, white basmati rice, is harvested in Punjabi. It cooked up fluffy and nutty, with each grain holding its integrity.

That integrity extends to the products themselves; the farm workers who help produce these products are paid a fair wage.