Honey Moonshine Recipe

What To Do With a Gallon of Honey?

The other day, I was chatting with a good customer of mine when he mentioned they were able to get their hands on a gallon of honey from a local beekeeper (believe it or not, it only cost them $30). Naturally, my mind started racing with the idea of creating the perfect honey moonshine.

So, today I present you with a recipe for making the best tasting Honey Moonshine that will ever touch your lips.

Recipe for Honey Moonshine (aka: Honey Whiskey or Honeyshine)

Ingredients:

       1 Gallon of honey

       5 Gallons of water

       Distillers yeast

What To Do:

The first step of this process is heating 2.5 gallons of your water to 120°F before stirring in 1 gallon of honey until it is completely dissolved. Now we can add the second half of our water to the honey mixture. Make sure you keep this portion of your water at room temperature.

Now it is time to grab your immersion chiller and cool the mixture to a balmy 70°F. At this point, you will need to go back to your childhood years and aerate the mash by pouring it back and forth between two buckets. Okay, so maybe we were “aerating” mud back in the day but it is still the same process.

Before we transfer the mash to our glass carboy, add 2 tablespoons of yeast. Now we can transfer it to the carboy and don’t forget to install the air lock. 

This is the hard part. We have to wait 2 weeks while our honey whisky ferments and make sure you keep that temperature at 70°F at all times.

Once the fermentation process is complete, we have to wait for another 5 to 7 days for it to settle out. When this is finished, you are ready to siphon (not pour but siphon) your mash into a 5 or 10 gallon copper moonshine still.

Don’t forget to toss in your foreshots, heads and tails when distilling. If you are planning to drink this un-aged then make sure you cut your heads and tails.

Finish It Off:

Let’s bring the flavor home by aging it for 2 to 3 weeks using lightly toasted, American oak chips and for that extra little flavor, throw in a little bit of honey to the finished product.

That is it, now you are ready to enjoy your honeyshine. Can you think of a better way to use a gallon of honey?

Posted by Jason Stone on February 20, 2017