If there’s anything to know about the craft beverage industry, it’s that it’s chock-full of incredibly collaborative creatives. From releasing collaboration beers to aging bourbon in port barrels, it’s an industry full of people who love to help their neighbor and share the wealth.
For Lee Hedgmon, the industry vet has found a way to combine her multi-passionate spirit for craft beverages with her love for sweet, sweet honey, creating the ultimate pairing with The Barreled Bee.
Hedgmon was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, spending the majority of her life in the area until she left to pursue a graduate degree in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota. Her experience in the craft beverage industry began as she got into homebrewing while working through school in 2004, leading her to develop interests in beer, wine, mead and cider along the way.
“I used to joke I started brewing because I needed something to drink while the wine, mead and cider were aging,” she says.
Building The Barreled Bee
When Hedgmon returned to Portland to finish writing her dissertation and search for academic jobs, she ultimately took a different path and began diving into brewing professionally in 2010. She started at now defunct Coalition Brewing, later moving on to positions at Old Town Brewing, homebrew supply stores F.H. Steinbart Co. and Portland U-Brew.
It wasn’t until a position came up at McMenamins’ Edgefield Distillery that Hedgmon dove into distilling, ultimately piquing her interest in what soon became The Barreled Bee. Now, she works as a distiller at the all-female operation of Freeland Spirits and continues to build her business of aging honey in barrels.
For Hedgmon, The Barreled Bee started as a side project in 2017. “I thought it would be a fun business that allowed me to merge all the things that I love,” she says, noting she developed her love for honey as a mead maker, along with developing her love for all things in barrel as a distiller.
Looking at what others were doing, Hedgmon saw that there were apiaries and distilleries that happened to be in close proximity to each other working together, but nobody was deliberating looking at varietals of honey and types of barrels and how the two would work simultaneously. The result has been exciting — crafting barrel-aged honeys that are ideal cocktail ingredients, spreads for a charcuterie board or even just a great way to elevate buttered toast.
Behind the Honey
Hedgmon has been working with Portland’s Mickelberry Gardens from the very beginning to source her honey, with a particular interest in the weirdest honeys that are harder to sell. With a focus on varieties, she looks at the particular region a honey is from and also considers where the bees have been.
“Bees take advantage of what’s available and they don’t go far,” she says. “They focus their harvest and foraging in the area they’re at.” With that focus, the honey can take on characteristics of the field the bees were near.
When it comes to barrels for Hedgmon, it all depends on what sounds good. She has utilized bourbon barrels and rye whiskey barrels from Pacific Northwest distilleries and even a Port barrel from nearby Abbey Creek Vineyard.
“The barrel can all depend on who made it and its char, and all of that gets carried over to the honey,” she says, noting that each is unique.
Once a variety of honey is intentionally paired with a barrel, it stays put for a minimum of four months before Hedgmon gives it a try. “Honey can dry out a barrel, so it can be a race against time,” she says. “It can depend on temperature and humidity.”
Hedgmon says she generally likes to keep the honey in barrel as long as it can handle it, but one might be able to imagine how messy 600 pounds of honey could be if the barrel starts to leak.
A learning experience from the very beginning, Hedgmon admits there has been a lot of trial and error along the way, finding out new things about different kinds of honey constantly. She has continued to grow her presence with The Barreled Bee, now with an online shop as well as several farm stores and boutiques in the area showcasing her product.
And what happens with the barrels once the honey is bottled? Hedgmon employs that collaborative industry spirit, giving barrels to breweries and cideries to work with, and leaving a few drops of honey inside for them to experiment with next.
