Labonté Pure & Natural Organic Honey (Brazil) Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada

Labonté honey has been a fixture in Quebec for over 70 years. In 1937 Rolland Labonté started the business in Victoriaville and it has grown into a large, global operation. Jean-Marc Labonté continues the tradition as the current head of the company. Labonté honey offers local Quebecois honey (blueberry, clover, and "pure and natural" which is probably a wild flower mix), and packages and distributes honey from Brazil (eucalyptus and organic pure and natural). You may know them for their "upside down pack no mess" honey bottles. They also produce maple syrup and offer bulk honey. And they aren't kidding when they call it bulk; their bulk containers range in size from 7 kg to 30 kg pails to a 1,400 kg Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC). It is hard for me to imagine the scale of 1,400 kg of honey. I envision a small swimming pool of liquid gold, which isn't too far off (see photo of 1,000 liter IBC containers).

 

1000 liter IBC containers

 Labonté honey also prides itself in its quality assurance program and are HACCP certified (i.e. use the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Food Safety Management System), are ECO certified and BIO certified (for their organic products). If you want guarantees that you are getting 100% natural honey, you can't go wrong with Labonté honey.

 

The honey I have is their "pure & natural organic honey" from Brazil. I checked the Labonté honey website to see if there was any more information about the honey-where in Brazil, what the floral was, etc.-but came up empty handed.  Usually if a floral source isn't specified it is a wild flower blend. 

Labonté Pure & Natural organic honey from Brazil

The honey is an amber golden color, very clear and of medium thickness, exactly what you think of when you think of honey. I don't see any particulate matter in it. It has a uniform sweet flavor with a hint of eucalyptus menthol at the end. This makes me think that they may place hives in the border areas around a eucalyptus forest or some batches of their eucalyptus honey have too much pollen from other sources, so it ends up being "pure and natural organic honey" rather than eucalyptus honey.  In my opinion some of the most interesting honey has multiple floral sources. 

 

This is a very good quality, robust honey that will please anyone who likes traditional honey. It is perfect for hot toast, baking or adding to tea or hot cereal.

 

 

Melkspruit Dairies Pure Honey, Ladybrand, South Africa

I was in Southern Africa for a short time recently and spent most of my time in Maseru, Lesotho. Maseru is on the boarder of South Africa. If you look at the map, Maseru is just south of the "E" in "Free State" across the border into Lesotho. For a change of pace, one Saturday I went to Ladybrand, a border town on the South African side for lunch (at Living Life- highly recommend it). A new acquaintance mentioned that the 'Milk store' near the Spar supermarket had fresh unpasteurized milk for sale. It is hard to get unpasteurized milk in the US because of milk regulations and I had never had unpasteurized milk, so on the way home I went to check it out.

Southern Africa

Countryside around Ladybrand, South Africa

The Milk Store is a store run by Melkspruit Dairies. As far as I can tell, Melkspruit Dairies is a farm near Teneriffe, in the Eastern Cape, a rural location on the border of Free State, where Ladybrand is. A search online suggests that Melkspruit is known for its elevation (4,380 feet above sea level), its periodic earthquakes, and its proclivity to drought.

In the store they have large, refrigerated stainless steel vats of milk. You can buy a plastic container, or bring your own, and fill it with fresh milk. I saw a few people come in with empty plastic liter soda bottles to fill. As soon as I was out of the store, I had a swig of my small plastic bottle. It is wonderful, creamy on the top, and oh so milky.  I can now see what all the fuss is about. It really is much more flavorful.

Southern African Landscape

Now apart from milk, cream, flavored milks, and cheese, they also have honey that they produce on the farm. It is called "Melkspruit Dairies Pure Honey." I get the feeling that South African diary farmers are a no-nonsense lot who call it like it is. I had been looking for locally produced honey and was having trouble finding any, so I was very happy to stumble on some in the milk store. The fellow manning the counter, a friendly fellow with a ready smile and a ruddy complexion, couldn't tell me much about it other than it was produced on the farm. From my limited experience of doing a few hikes and driving in the area, the terrain is mostly low brush and scrub with some herbs, grasses and eucalyptus. Crops are mostly maize and sorghum, but I did see a few sunflower fields.

The honey was runny when I first got it, but it has since crystallized, so it is a pretty fast crystallizer. It is now an opaque, deep yellow color with specks of pollen and other fragments in it. It resembles lemon curb but with a deeper yellow color, almost the color of egg yolks. It is now a solid mass of medium sized crystals with a slightly floral beginning taste, that is then overpowered by the fresh, spicy taste of menthol. The menthol is undoubtedly from a eucalyptus source. It is a very good, high quality, unprocessed honey.

Melkspruit Dairies Pure Honey

Eucalyptus Honey, Olivera Do Hospital, Portugal

The eucalyptus honey that I have is from Olivera do Hospital in Portugal.
Oliveira do Hospital is a municipality in the central part of continental Portugal in the district of Coimbra, which is known for, among other things, as having one of the oldest universities in Europe, the University of Coimbra (founded in 1308). The area has been inhabited since at least 465 BCE, first by the Romans, and later by the Visigoths, Moors, and Christians. Coimbra also has the distinction of being named the capitol of the new Kingdom (aka Portugal) in the mid-12th century by the first Portuguese King, Afonso Henriques.

Olivera do Hospital, which is located on the northern edge of the district of Coimbra, is home to about 5,000 inhabitants. It is an agricultural area known primarily for its wine and cheeses, located in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela Mountains, which are bisected by the Alva and Alvoco River valleys. They also make honey.

The producers of my eucalyptus honey, Quinta de Jugais (http://www.jugais.com) produce other types of honey (mountain, rosemary, orange, heather), as well as jams, olive oil, and tea. Their website states that they pride themselves in using traditional methods that produce high-quality products.

According to Wiki, 'Eucalyptus' comprises a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. There are more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, but most are native only to Australia, with only 15 species found in other areas. Eucalyptus trees are cultivated throughout the tropics and subtropics. Some Eucalyptus species are of interest to environmentalists because they are fast-growing sources of wood, produce oil that has natural insecticide qualities, and, can be used to drain swamps (given their 'water sucking' ability), thereby reduce the risk of malaria.

Eucalyptus honey is a hearty orange-red color with a slightly spicy aroma. It is a relatively thick honey with a surprisingly simple taste, of honey sweetness with a subtle under and after taste of something herby, not unlike green tea. The taste is clean and stable throughout. Because the taste is not overpowering or complex, I think it would be a good choice for baking or in tea.

I got my Qinta de Jugais eucalyptus honey at TJMAXX (of all places) but I see that on their website you are able to contact the producers so might find sellers in your area by contacting them.