VIHC owner, Richard Spiegel

Back in the 1980′s, when VIHC was just becoming more than a hobby, Richard went into Dean & Deluca (one of the first and finest specialty food stores in the U.S.) with a jar of White Honey in his vest pocket. It was just before Christmas, and Richard was told he would not be able to meet with the store buyer, as the holiday season was very busy. But as fate would have it, Joel Dean, the owner, walked out at that very moment and asked if he could help …

Richard showed him the jar of honey and gave him a taste. “Send me two cases,” Mr. Dean said. That endorsement later warmed many a cold call, as Richard introduced the honey to other potential accounts. Once tasted, the honey sold itself.

At that time, VIHC had only one product: white kiawe honey. Many people advised Richard on how to run a small business, saying it would never

Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey

succeed with just one product. But, being an unconventional, hippy businessman, Richard ignored this advice; VIHC continued to offer only the White Honey and the business continued to grow. Eventually, however, he did decide to try creating another product. One of those he tried was honey with passionfruit, or lilikoi (“li-li-koi”) in Hawaiian.

Lilikoi vine, with flowers and fruit

Though not native to Hawaii, lilikoi has become a local favorite, especially when added to other foods. Eaten fresh off the vine, it is high in vitamin C, potassium, beta carotene and fiber. Baked, squeezed, frozen or preserved, it is turned into a variety of tasty confections (lilikoi butter, jelly, pie, cookies) and refreshing drinks (smoothies, iced tea). We obtain our lilikoi wild crafted from a small, local, family-owned company. The lilikoi puree is then mixed, by hand, into our honey in small batches.

Since we began offering Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey with Hawaiian Lilikoi, it has become a customer favorite. Like other winning flavor combinations (tomato and basil, apple and cinnamon, papaya and lime), the blend of White Honey and lilikoi somehow amounts to more than the sum of its parts: the tart, tropical tang of lilikoi complements the rich, creamy sweetness of White Honey, yielding a sensuous, magically delicious result!

If you’ve already tried our White Honey with Hawaiian Lilikoi, let us know what you think on the product review link on our product page. If you

White Honey with Hawaiian Lilikoi

Be creative: if you discover your favorite way of using our lilikoi honey, please share it with us on Facebook or by email. Better yet, invite some friends to share your favorite lilikoi honey treat!

White Lilikoi Eco Box

In honor of sweet fathers everywhere, for the next week only (ending on 6/20/11) we’re offering special flat rate shipping of only $15 for any order of$100 or more. May we suggest our White Lilikoi Eco Six Pack?

Sunset in the Puako forest, where our White Honey is gathered

People often ask what makes our honey so special? Our short answer is that we use meticulous harvesting and handling techniques; however, there is an essential element that provides the platform for all our beekeeping activities.  This element is where the honey comes from, and can be described as a sense of place, or ‘terroir.’ This special place imparts an extraordinary quality to our honey, which is gathered exclusively from this one unique dryland forest.

Terroir comes from the Latin word for land, terre. It was originally a French term used to denote the special characteristics that geography, geology and climate give to the unique foods cultivated in different regions. Examples include Champagne (from Champagne, France), Balsamic Vinegar of Modena (Italy), Columbian coffee, Camambert cheese (from Normandy), and Vidalia onions (from Vidalia, Georgia). Humans also affect the quality of these special foods – for instance, through their decisions about which crop varieties to cultivate and animal breeds to raise, and which specific farming practices to use.

Our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey is a prime example of a terroir food.  All our White (kiawe) honeys come from a single grove of kiawe trees on the Big Island of Hawaii. Known as the Puako forest, this rare environment was created by converging natural and human forces.

The Puako forest is located on the island’s leeward coast, meaning that it is sheltered from the prevailing northeasterly trade winds by the nearly 14,000 foot Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa volcanoes.

Owner/Beekeeper, Richard Spiegel, walking through the Puako apiary

So, the Puako forest does not receive much rain – only about 7 inches per year. The climate is warm and dry, but a perennial source of brackish (salty) groundwater provides subterranean irrigation year-round. While most plants cannot tolerate Puako’s saline, coastal soils, the kiawe tree (Prosopis pallida) — a salt-tolerant legume native to coastal South America — is perfectly adapted.  Kiawe was brought to Hawaii from Peru by humans in the late 1820s. It was later spread by cattle, who ate the nutrient-rich bean pods, literally planting the Puako forest that exists today.

Luckily for us (and our honey-loving friends), the forest in Puako happens to be a classic oasis — isolated in the middle of a ‘lava desert’, created by Mauna Loa’s 1859 eruption. Since no other flowers bloom in such high abundance in this area, we are able to collect a monofloral honey, made solely from kiawe nectar.  This also allows for the production of organic honey, as Puako’s more than 1000 forested acres are free from synthetics, pesticides and other toxins.

View of Puako

These unique ecological features (isolation, abundant sunshine, dry weather,and constant irrigation) and human influence (the introduction of kiawe), combined with the bees’ tireless work, create the essence of our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey. Our intention, as beekeepers, is to change it as little as possible, bringing you as close to a taste of this magical Hawaiian forest as possible! That is why we are committed to a raw, unfiltered, all-natural product.

This May, Puako is bursting with Spring flowers. Thankfully, our bees’ health also appears to be improving, and right now the kiawe honey flow is strong. Since all of our honeys are seasonal and limited in supply, you will be glad to know that our White Honey, is available right now through our online store.

We know that shipping has gotten expensive with rising oil prices, and many of our customers have found that ordering larger shipments, especially our eco six pack, helps them save money.

Blooming Kiawe flowers

Ordering larger quantities at a time also helps conserve our precious natural resources, like fossil fuels.

Taking care of the environment is a huge part of who we are and what we do here at Volcano Island Honey Co. We are grateful and honored to share the rare and wonderful environment of the Puako forest with customers like you, who will appreciate the terroir that makes our exceptional honey possible.

Macadamia nuts, shelled and whole

Some of you have been waiting for our Macadamia Honey for a long time. After two years of not producing Macadamia Honey, we are happy to offer it once again. 

Three weeks ago, we harvested an unusual blend of macadamia and kiawe honey – a combination that, in Hawaii marks the end of winter and a sudden turn to spring. 

Because the kiawe flower bloom started a month early, we moved the bees from an organic macadamia nut orchard into the Puako kiawe forest before we could extract the Macadamia Honey. And, before we were able to get the macadmia honey off the hives, the bees had already collected some kiawe honey; the result: a natural but unique blend we have never had before, capturing some of the bees’ winter surplus of Macadamia Honey and a hint of their first spring harvest of White Kiawe Honey – all in one jar!

Macadamia flowers and nuts

This naturally blended Macadamia Kiawe Honey is truly a happy marriage of two honeys that has some very unique qualities; in fact, we’ve never tasted anything quite like it. Its full, fruity Macadamia Honey flavor (think warm caramel with a tropical tang) is quite different from the rich, round, neutral sweetness of our White Honey. But it isn’t like pure Macadamia Honey either, which has a deep bronze color and viscous liquid consistency. This honey does have a smooth buttery texture like our white kiawe honey, but it’s not as firm, and with an opaque amber sheen. What creates this unique texture?

 In our March newsletter, we talked about our fancy Silk Honey and how its exquisitely smooth texture is the result of microscopic crystals.    As we learned last month, texture is related to how the nectar crystallizes and crystallization is a result of the specific combination of different sugars present in the nectar.  This month, let’s look a little deeper into the relationship between nectars, sugars, crystals and honey texture. Many people know that honey is largely composed of sugar with small amounts of minerals and vitamins.  But not many people know that there are different kinds of sugar in honey – dextrose and levulose are the main sugars, along with sucrose, maltose, and at least 20 other more complex sugars.  Honeys from different flower (nectar) sources have different sugar compositions; and that’s the main reason why different honeys have different textures.

Crystallization in honey is a complex process, involving many other factors still not fully understood. From our understanding, it is the proportions of sugars that affect crystallization timing. Essentially, honey with a higher proportion of levulose to dextrose crystallizes more slowly, while honey with a lower proportion of levulose to dextrose crystallizes more quickly.  Most honeys have a high levulose to dextrose ratio and crystallize slowly over time, causing large gritty crystals to grow; honeys that crystallize quickly, on the other hand, grow tiny crystals.  Thus, the faster honey crystallizes the smaller its crystals, and the smaller the crystals the smoother the honey. Our White (kiawe) Honey crystallizes very quickly, within a couple days of bottling, due to its relatively high dextrose to levulose sugar ratio; this fast crystallization leads to its naturally thick, smooth, creamy texture. Macadamia flower nectar has less dextrose in relation to levulose, making it crystallize more slowly and typically remain liquid for about a year.

This year’s natural blend of a hint of kiawe honey in the Macadamia Honey is a unique mix of nectars and combination of sugars, resulting in a smooth, crystallized but soft-textured honey. Order a jar right now through our online store and get a taste of the macadamia magic, 100% organic and raw, while it lasts.

Lilikoi is passion fruit in Hawaiian.


Lilikoi is a fragrant fruit with a lovely tangy and sweet taste. Many people think that the beeLilikoi Honeys feed on the nectar of the lilikoi flower and that is how we get lilikoi honey. But in fact, we mix pure wild-crafted puree of the lilikoi fruit into our Organic White Honey to make our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey with Hawaiian Lilikoi. The sweetness of our white honey mixes perfectly with the tartness of the lilikoi. (Kind of like some couples, eh?)


Passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) is native to South America, and grows prolifically in Hawaii. It is a rich source of vitamin C and a good source of vitamin A, iron, and potassium. We source our lilikoi puree locally from a small environmentally aware company.


Ways to Use Lilikoi Honey

If you’re like us – we like eating all of our honeys straight out of the jar! It is also a great spread on pancakes, waffles or whole wheat toast. You can also combine the lilikoi honey with butter or cream cheese as a spread. Sunee Campbell, our Production Manager uses our lilikoi honey to make an easy and delicious cake frosting. Its great on carrot cake and chocolate cake! Just whip one 8 oz block of cream cheese with about 3 Tablespoons of lilikoi honey.


Try our Silk and Passion Gift Box or a jar of our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey with Hawaiian Lillikoi.

Straight out of the jar is a very popular favorite way to use our honey and our customers came up with some great new ideas!

All of your great ideas and comments are listed below, but Joshua and Ann (first two posts) won jars of our silk honey for their innovative ideas:

• Joshua: Flax cracker, silk honey, oily tahini, banana, chili pepper.
• Ann: I like to infuse it with lavender.
• Jen B: While I’ve used it in tea, crepes (with peanut butter), and on toast in the past, the only way I eat it now is straight out of the jar with a spoon. Volcano Island honey is too delicious to add anything else to it!
• Jen S: The BEST treat to make using delicious Volcano honey is blending it with some pecans and raw butter. Watch out! You can substitute any nut of your choice but my fav is pecans.
• Rae: My favorite way to enjoy your amazing honey is to spread it on a fresh buttermilk biscuit right out of the oven. The heat of the biscuit releases all of the honey aroma…its heavenly!
• Tom: Macadamia nut butter and honey on very thinly sliced whole wheat bread. I get to go back to Hawaii with every bite.
• Mark: I make Mead from honey and would love to try this variety out. Mead is a wine made from honey!!!!
• Jeffery: My “G” rated favorite way to use your fab honey is straight out of the jar, don’t mess with perfection!
• Joy: Jeffery is right..Your honey is great just by itself and I like honey so much that I also use it on oatmeal and my favorite is Fresh Ginger Root Tea with honey..
• Gillian: I like it spread on toast. I’ve also used it in both ways above. But my favorite way is in my homemade honey -mustard dressing.
• Fern: A little dab on a spoon and voila!
• Chieko: In fruity white tea!
• Rosemarie: I use it to sweeten my coffee in place of sugar. I think it’s a more complex and enjoyable taste combination. With a splash of almond milk it beats any ordinary latte or “coffee” drink… much healthier too!
• Trista: Right out of the jar.
• Mel: Heat up one cup of milk and add two teaspoon of honey. It’s soothing for a stomach ache.
• Jen: Straight out of the jar.
• Anne: Well, the other day I had a super wicked tart batch of blackberries … those huge ones. So I took my jar of your yummy honey and ate one berry, then a tiny spoon dipped in the honey jar and ate that. Then the next berry, then a tiny spoonful of honey. And so on. Not too much honey to overwhelm the berry … juuuuuuust enough. Basically, I ended up with a very yummy healthy snack that day of berries and your lovely honey. Thank you!

Thanks to all of our customers who sent in their ideas… and please keep adding to this list!

Posted by Andrea Dean.

Win a Free Jar of our Silk Honey:


Tell us your favorite ways to use our honey. We will select the most interesting and unusual entries and award silk honey! Your best ideas and winners will be featured on our blog in September.


So…your favorite way to use our honey is…

Twenty years ago when Peter Merriman was the Executive Chef at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel he and a group of local chefs started the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement. Shortly thereafter, Chef Merriman opened Merriman’s in Waimea.

From the Merriman’s website: “The Waimea restaurant is now widely recognized as the flagship home of Hawaii Regional Cuisine, the island-based culinary movement that has garnered worldwide acclaim. Chef and restaurateur Peter Merriman worked closely with local farmers, ranchers and fishermen to create Hawaii Regional Cuisine, which showcases fresh and local produce, meats and fish”

Now Hawaii Regional Cuisine has become the signature cuisine in Hawaii and Merriman’s legacy of supporting local farmers and using local ingredients has become the norm for most high end restaurants in Hawaii.

Last weekend, Richard Spiegel, the owner of Volcano Island Honey Co. stayed at the Kona Village Resort for a much needed and well deserved weekend getaway. Richard was all inner and outer smiles when the server brought a jar of Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey along with jams and preserves to the breakfast table. It was the first time Richard’s white honey was ever served to him in a restaurant. Always doing market research, the incognito Richard asked the server if customers ever ask about the honey. The server lit up and said, “Oh yes! Everybody loves this honey.”

Back when the movement was just getting started, Peter Merriman started using our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey at the Mauna Lani. Now, 20 years later, the Mauna Lani is still serving our honey to guests.

We are truly thankful for the visionary chefs who started the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement and all of the chefs today who continue to appreciate and utilize our honey.

It was a sweet start for Volcano Island Honey. Today, there are eleven high end restaurants and resorts in Hawaii that serve our honey to their guests:

Kona Village Resort
Mauna Lani Resort Big, Island.
Four Season Resort Hualalai, Big Island
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Big Island
Hapuna Prince Hotel, Big Island
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Oahu
Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk, Oahu
Sheraton Waikiki, Oahu
Moana Surfrider Waikiki, Oahu
Four Season Resorts Lanai, Lanai
St. Regis Princeville Resort, Kauai