Review: Something Sweet - Cloister Honey

Creator: Cloister Honey
Price: $3-$11 depending on product
Link: Cloister Honey

Honey and BBQ work well together. I use honey on my ribs, in my sauces and glazes for wings. This year I am trying to use more local produce and items for our table and trying to be more farm-to-table oriented. Last year when our local Whole Foods opened my wife and I were checking it out and came across Cloister Honey. They were passing out samples of their honey and we both liked what we tried.

The bottles of sweet liquid gold. 

At the end of January this year I was surprised with a sampler pack of their products and my little cooking mind started to dream. We had a bottle of their wildflower honey, arbor chili pepper honey, chipotle pepper honey, vanilla honey, bourbon infused honey, whipped cinnamon honey and the whipped lemon honey. Oh the choices.


Superbowl was right around the corner and I had planned to make wings and ribs so I knew I had to use the honey on them. When I made the ribs, using my standard rib recipe, I used the chipotle pepper honey for the honey. It added a little bit of spice to the ribs that was really good.

Wings and ribs cooking.

For the wings I did a honey-soy glaze.

• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup distilled vinegar
• 3 tablespoons chipotle pepper honey
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons garlic
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar

Mix ingredients together and set aside.

I smoked the wings until they were almost done, then brushed the glaze on them for the last 10 minutes of cooking. When I took the wings off the cooker I placed them in a large bowl and poured the remaining glaze on the wings and mixed them all up. They were a hit. 

Wings ready to eat.

I've also used the pepper infused honeys on honey mustard chicken.

• 1/2 cup yellow mustard
• 3 tablespoons honey (pepper infused)
• 1 tablespoon curry powder.

Mix the ingredients together, brush on chicken and grill (or you can bake in the oven). 

The whipped lemon honey is really good in hot tea. And the cinnamon makes for a yummy morning treat on toast with butter as does the wildflower honey.

The vanilla and bourbon honeys have me a bit stumped because I don't make a lot of dessert type things that these would work well in. Both would be awesome on baklava or in a sweeter recipe that calls for honey. 

If your in the Charlotte area you can find Cloister Honey at Whole Foods, Dean & DeLuca, Atherton Mill Market and some of the other specialty grocers. If you aren't in the area and would like to try their fine product you can order it online.

Cloister Honey definitely gets a full rack of ribs on the Gibbs' Ribs Scale*. They are knowledgeable about their product, make a great selection of flavors and work locally but think globally.

*When I do reviews, books or otherwise, I rate the items with ribs (they are my favorite BBQ dish). A full rack is great and a single rib is poor. I will tend to stick to a full rack, half rack or one rib