A Taste of Honey

A few days ago my friend and I spent a pleasant evening consuming a bottle of medovina. Medovina is honey wine - med being the Czech word for honey (a medved is a bear by the way). The golden liquid slips down beautifully, warming the heart and the stomach. It feels like you are drinking the warm sun of summer - which in a way you are.

In the summer a car journey through the Sumava will take you past houses fronted by roadside stalls, where you can buy jars of honey, medovina and other bee products. Sumava honey is particularly lovely - you can taste the forest in it or the flowers of the Alpine hay meadows. There are other Czech uses for honey - there is medovnik (the honey cake) which is a favourite of mine and my friend even told me that a local wisewoman cured her bad shoulder using a honey massage.

But at the end of a long hard day nothing can beat medovina and good company. Unlike some other alcoholic beverages medovnik does not depress, instead it mellows. You can almost feel the bees buzzing gently in your stomach.