What is honey liqueur?

A honey liqueur is a liqueur in which honey is the sweetener or flavouring, and the drink must meet category 33 of Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2019/787.

That category describes liqueur as a spirit drink based on ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin, a distillate of agricultural origin, one or more spirit drinks, or a combination thereof, sweetened and flavoured with flavourings, agricultural products or foodstuffs. Honey fits that description in two ways at once: as sweetener and as flavouring.

Honey liqueur is therefore not a legal category of its own. The word on the label describes the flavour; the legal name remains liqueur. That explains why bottles that are all called honey liqueur can differ greatly from one another in base, alcohol content and sweetness.

According to category 33, liqueur contains at least 15% alcohol and at least 100 grams of sugar per litre, expressed as invert sugar. No deviating lower limits apply to honey liqueur.

The regulation has two exceptions to that sugar limit, and neither concerns honey. Cherry and morello cherry liqueur whose alcohol comes exclusively from cherry distillate may stay at 70 grams per litre. Liqueurs flavoured exclusively with gentian, a similar plant or wormwood may stay at 80 grams per litre. A honey liqueur must therefore reach the full 100 grams.

The 13 honey liqueurs in the shop at Brink 2 range from 14.7% to 40% alcohol. The bottle of 14.7% stays under the limit of category 33 and also does not count as spirits in the Alcoholwet, because that law draws the line at fifteen percent by volume at twenty degrees Celsius.

No. Mead or honey wine is made by fermenting honey with water and does not appear among the 44 categories of spirit drinks in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2019/787.

Among other things, the regulation requires of a spirit drink that it is produced by distillation, maceration or addition to agricultural ethanol, and excludes drinks falling under CN codes 2203 to 2207. A fermented honey product belongs in that excluded group and therefore cannot be called a liqueur.

Honey does have a place of its own in the regulation. Category 44, honey nectar or mead nectar, is a spirit drink of at least 22% alcohol, with at least 30% fermented honey mash, sweetened only with honey and flavoured only with natural flavourings, in which the honey taste predominates.

Honey liqueur can be based on different alcohols: agricultural ethanol, a distillate of agricultural origin or another spirit drink. Category 33 allows all three, and also a combination.

That difference in base is easy to see on the shelf. The 13 bottles labeled honey liqueur come from 11 brands from six countries: three from Spain, three from Ireland, three from the Netherlands, two from Portugal, one from Mexico and one from Scotland. Prices range from € 11.99 to € 44.99.

In addition, there are 31 whisky liqueurs on the shelf, some of them made with honey. These bottles usually carry the designation whisky liqueur and legally fall under the same category 33. In total, the liqueur section in Bathmen holds 789 bottles.

Look at the legal designation on the label, at the alcohol percentage and at the age limit of 18 years set by the Dutch Alcohol Act.

The legal name tells you which rules the bottle falls under. If it says liqueur, then the 15% alcohol and the 100 grams of sugar per liter of category 33 apply. If it says honey nectar or mead nectar, it is category 44, with at least 22% alcohol and at least 30% fermented honey mash. A drink of less than 15% alcohol cannot carry the name liqueur.

De Alcoholwet verbiedt in artikel 20, eerste lid, het bedrijfsmatig of anders dan om niet verstrekken van alcoholhoudende drank aan een persoon van wie niet is vastgesteld dat hij 18 jaar is. In Bathmen vragen wij daarom om een legitimatie bij twijfel. NIX18.

If you cannot work it out, it helps to hold the bottle in your hands. The shop at Brink 2 has around 6,500 items, of which about 3,900 are whisky, and the honey liqueurs are together on the liqueur shelf.