I did not know about this type of honey... hmmm...Tupelo: The Cognac of Honey. 
Kim Severson - NY Times - Food - 28 May 19
"ODUM, Ga. — The most expensive honey in America starts in these mucky Southern swamps, where white Ogeechee tupelo trees twist up out of water so dark you can’t tell if that was an alligator or a snake that just broke the surface.
Near a swamp in southeastern Georgia, Frederick Merriam Jr., right, his son Aidan Merriam, center, and Brandon Tai, left, of Honey Next Door in Atlanta, use smoke to keep bees calm while they check how the season’s crop of tupelo honey is progressing.
For two precious weeks each spring in this slice of southeastern Georgia and in the Florida Panhandle, tupelo trees bloom with pale, fragile flowers that look like pompoms for tiny cheerleaders. Beekeepers tuck their hives along the banks, or occasionally float them out into the water on rafts. Then the bees get to work, making honey that looks and tastes like no other. [...] a real bargain for honey that can command $22.95 a pound online.
Good tupelo will glow with a light green tint, especially when it’s fresh from the comb and bathed in sunlight. The first taste is of cinnamon with a tingle of anise. That gives way to a whisper of jasmine and something citrusy — tangerine rind, maybe? The honey is so soft, light and buttery that the only logical move is to chase it with another spoonful.
Tupelo honey fresh from the comb has a distinctive light green tint.
Because of the high ratio of fructose to glucose, tupelo honey never crystalizes.
“I love it, but it’s not something I can afford to use regularly,” said Kelly Fields, whom the James Beard Foundation recently named the year’s Outstanding Pastry Chef for work at her New Orleans restaurant, Willa Jean. “The real stuff is so sacred down here that if I ever got my hands on some, I’d probably keep it at home.”
Beekeepers who chase the tupelo bloom are a fiercely competitive and vanishing breed. All told, there are probably fewer than 200 beekeepers producing the honey in any notable quantities in Florida and Georgia, wholesale buyers and agricultural officials estimate. That doesn’t include hundreds of other beekeepers who might secrete a few hives along the riverbanks.
The honey-gathering season just ended, and it was a bad one, at least in Florida. In October, Hurricane Michael, the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the contiguous United States in 26 years, made landfall in the heart of tupelo country. Wooden bee boxes were smashed into kindling or blown away. Trees were bent and stripped of their leaves. Blooms started five months early, if they came at all.
Tupelo trees, which produce small, nectar-filled light green and white flowers for two weeks each spring, rise out of swamps in the Altamaha River Basin in southeastern Georgia.
[...] If you want to get into one of the South’s great culinary conflicts, try telling a Florida beekeeper that Georgia tupelo is just as good. [...] Tupelo producers are among the food world’s toughest negotiators and most
enthusiastic trash talkers".
Read More: Tupelo Honey
"Tupelo Honey: Liquid Gold from the Swamps". Kim Severson
Kim Severson - NY Times - Food - 28 May 19
"ODUM, Ga. — The most expensive honey in America starts in these mucky Southern swamps, where white Ogeechee tupelo trees twist up out of water so dark you can’t tell if that was an alligator or a snake that just broke the surface.
Near a swamp in southeastern Georgia, Frederick Merriam Jr., right, his son Aidan Merriam, center, and Brandon Tai, left, of Honey Next Door in Atlanta, use smoke to keep bees calm while they check how the season’s crop of tupelo honey is progressing.
Good tupelo will glow with a light green tint, especially when it’s fresh from the comb and bathed in sunlight. The first taste is of cinnamon with a tingle of anise. That gives way to a whisper of jasmine and something citrusy — tangerine rind, maybe? The honey is so soft, light and buttery that the only logical move is to chase it with another spoonful.
Tupelo honey fresh from the comb has a distinctive light green tint.
Because of the high ratio of fructose to glucose, tupelo honey never crystalizes.
“I love it, but it’s not something I can afford to use regularly,” said Kelly Fields, whom the James Beard Foundation recently named the year’s Outstanding Pastry Chef for work at her New Orleans restaurant, Willa Jean. “The real stuff is so sacred down here that if I ever got my hands on some, I’d probably keep it at home.”
Beekeepers who chase the tupelo bloom are a fiercely competitive and vanishing breed. All told, there are probably fewer than 200 beekeepers producing the honey in any notable quantities in Florida and Georgia, wholesale buyers and agricultural officials estimate. That doesn’t include hundreds of other beekeepers who might secrete a few hives along the riverbanks.
The honey-gathering season just ended, and it was a bad one, at least in Florida. In October, Hurricane Michael, the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the contiguous United States in 26 years, made landfall in the heart of tupelo country. Wooden bee boxes were smashed into kindling or blown away. Trees were bent and stripped of their leaves. Blooms started five months early, if they came at all.
Tupelo trees, which produce small, nectar-filled light green and white flowers for two weeks each spring, rise out of swamps in the Altamaha River Basin in southeastern Georgia.
[...] If you want to get into one of the South’s great culinary conflicts, try telling a Florida beekeeper that Georgia tupelo is just as good. [...] Tupelo producers are among the food world’s toughest negotiators and most
enthusiastic trash talkers".
Read More: Tupelo Honey
