Moonshine Honey Project is an organisation that sells 100% natural honey sourced directly from beekeepers across India who harvest responsibly and don’t compromise on quality.
It is a subsidiary of Moonshine Meadery, one of India’s first meaderies that was founded by Rohan Rehani and Nitin Vishwas in 2018. Mead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey. Conceived during the covid-19 lockdown, the Moonshine Honey Project intends to address gaps in the traceability of honey, and control the supply chain in the honey industry, where trust is crucial during sourcing, harvesting, and processing of the ingredient.
Led by their beekeeper Akshay Borse, Moonshine Honey Project sources honey in two ways. The first is by keeping the bee boxes stationary at two partner farms near Pune. The purpose of the Pune chapter is to revive the bee population in Maharashtra. The other is through migratory beekeeping, the practice of moving bee boxes across farms depending on the crop and the period of flowering. Moonshine Honey Project’s Mustard, Acacia, and Sidr Honey are sourced this way. Their mission is to make urban beekeeping an accessible dream and to highlight the provenance of high-quality honey.
Why We Love Moonshine Honey Project
- Bees and the ecosystem – The focus of their Pune chapter is to improve the population of bees, which helps pollinate different trees and hence maintain the ecosystem. According to the founder Rohan, beekeeping can increase the yield of pomegranates by up to 200 percent.
- Traceability – The exact source of origin is known for all types of honey sold by the Moonshine Honey Project, with GPS Coordinates mentioned on each of the bottles.
- Quality of honey – The team is conscious of producing and harvesting the honey to maintain its purity and quality, while also taking care of the bees. We personally enjoy the taste of their honey in both sweet and savoury applications.
- Flavour nuances – Each kind of honey has its own unique flavour and distinct characteristics. The Mustard Honey is lemony, creamy white, and can be easily spread. The Sidr has notes of butterscotch, is thicker, and less acidic.
- Recipe content – While we appreciate their delicious honey variants, we also love the content put up on social media by their operations head, Devashish Sutavani. Do check out their fun(ny) recipes using honey!
- Meadery Tours – The Meadery Tours, hosted by Moonshine Meadery in Pune, are a great way to taste and explore different types of honey and meads, and understand the work at the heart of this project.
Note from the Producer
“The Moonshine Honey Project is our way of supporting sustainable beekeeping. Sourced directly from our own bee boxes across India, our small batch of honey is truly handmade by the bees. So whether it’s in our meads or in this jar, you can be sure that our honey is responsibly sourced and 100 percent pure.”
— Rohan Rehani, Founder of Moonshine Meadery and Moonshine Honey Project
The Locavore Bite
TL Bite offers a glimpse into how a partner producer runs their operations, and reflects their core principles and values. The idea is to provide insights into their practices and highlight their positive efforts descriptively. We have identified seven key areas of assessment – origin and source of ingredients, composition and integrity of the products, workforce policies, production practices, community-related initiatives, approach towards preserving or celebrating traditional knowledge and the materials used in packaging. While this assessment may not be entirely comprehensive, we hope it helps you make an informed decision about why you might want to support them, and the ways in which to.
The information below offers you a snapshot of where Moonshine Honey Project stands on these parameters. We have put this together based on several rounds of conversation with Rohan Rehani, Founder of Moonshine Meadery and Moonshine Honey Project, as well as Devashish Sutavani, Operations Manager of Moonshine Honey Project. Click on a piece of the pie below to find out more.
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If you’re interested in reading more about Moonshine Honey Project, read our feature on them here.
Products We Recommend
Sidr Honey
Mustard Honey
How to Buy
If you would like to learn more about Moonshine Honey Project, or try different types of honey, check out their website. If you’re interested in supporting them in other ways, please contact us at connect@thelocavore.in.
This is a paid partnership with Moonshine Honey Project. We strive to keep the practices of a producer transparent and honest across all forms of partnerships.
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