The Fairmont Royal York’s Executive Chef, David Garcelon is pleased to announce that the hotel’s first harvest of rooftop honey has been awarded the honour of 2nd place in the Liquid Honey Amber category in in the Honey and Beeswax Competition at the 86th annual Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, running now through to November 16, 2008 at Toronto’s Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place.
A total of 378 pounds of honey was harvested from the 14th storey triple hive apiary, established earlier this year. The winning honey was sourced from a combination of the three rooftop hives: The Honey Moon Suite, The Royal Sweet and The V.I.Bee Suite. Executive Chef Garcelon is thrilled by the 2nd place recognition and notes that, “…our bees are thriving in such a short time. We can only hope to enter more liquid honey categories next year.”
A 500 gram sampling of the harvest was submitted for judging under the Amber category. The color of the award winning honey, contained in the regulation sized honey jar, was determined using a honey classifier approved by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Liquid honey points were awarded for flavour and aroma, uniform level of fill, density, colour, freedom from crystals, freedom from foreign material, freedom from air bubbles, uniformity of honey, brightness and appearance and uniformity of containers. An additional condition of entry to the competition states that all honey products be donated to the RAWF for sale to the public at the Royal Auction on Sunday November 16.
The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair is a unique event that takes place every November in the City of Toronto. The Royal is the largest combined indoor agricultural fair and international equestrian competition in the world. The fair began on November 22, 1922 with an astonishing 17,000 agricultural entries and over 150,000 visitors. Now in its 86th year, The Royal continues to hold an important place in the world of agriculture and in the hearts and minds of the many participants and visitors – now over 326,000 strong.
Read what The National Post’s Karen Hawthorne had to say about the win.
