Just an 8-minute drive from Hilltop Country House, you’ll find a thriving family-run hive of bee activity, that’s Happy Valley Honey Bee Farm. A flourishing business that has a similar story to us…
Happy Valley Honey is set in Bollington, in the foothills of the Peak District. Their 130+ colonies of worker bees pollinate the British crops and harvest nectar from the surrounding towns and villages. This means that the bees you see in and around Hilltop’s gardens are working hard to produce this delicious, local honey.
Happy Valley Honey started back from a conversation in a local pub after a walk around the nearby hills and countryside 15 years ago. Little did they know it would grow beyond their initial dream of keeping some bees.
They are now a super successful hive of bee activity, supplying pure English honey to customers throughout Cheshire and surrounding areas. That includes us Hilltop, our Cheshire wedding venue is one of their lucky customers!
Alongside their stock of Cheshire blossom and soft set honey is a specialist range of English honey harvested from blueberries, borange and Peak District heather moors. All of their honey is sustainably sourced, direct from their own bees or similar British bee farmers for this specialist range. The honey is cold extracted, coarsely filtered to retain goodness and never blended or pasteurised.
Honey is a key ingredient both in the Hilltop kitchen and on the bar to sweeten up any food or drink. Like the Happy Valley Honey bees who shop locally in their nearby gardens, we also love to utilise and support our local suppliers. One of our business directors completed a beekeeping course with Happy Valley Honey, and Head Chef Iain visited the honey farm. Both learnt all about just how their honey is produced and were very impressed with their story and products. And that’s why, anything that contains honey on our menus will be Happy Valley Honey.
The Happy Valley Honey Rum Daiquiri
When re-designing the Hilltop cocktail menu, our bar manager Cameron wanted to create a unique cocktail that incorporated this fresh honey.
“I was blown away by the flavours after trying the blossom honey, I knew this would pair perfectly in a homemade honey rum. This cocktail is light, sweet and refreshing, tastes just like summer in a glass.”
Once Cameron had perfected his recipe, it was time to invite the Happy Valley Honey team to Hilltop for a taste test and to say they enjoyed it is an understatement. They didn’t want it to end!
This cocktail has been a huge hit with our couples and their guests, with many couples choosing it as one of their signature cocktails.
Cooking with Happy Valley Honey
So, when chefs Iain, Paul and Simon need a natural sweetener in your wedding food, their go-to is always Happy Valley Honey. Honey is used in a variety of our dishes but is most regularly added to the honey-roasted heritage roots and canape sticky honey mustard sausages. It is also used in various soup starters, mini chicken tikka poppadom canape and also in the sweet onion puree used in the vegetarian gnocchi. The perfect ingredient to balance the sweet and savoury elements.
We are very proud to be working so closely alongside Happy Valley Honey as we continue to support local businesses and grow our own produce in our very own garden. So, remember, when you’re sipping that cocktail or savouring a sweet mouthful, the bees you’ll see amongst the flowers in the gardens are just doing their thing to give you delicious honey.
Bee kind!
