Christine and Arthur Kubogamell have been busy bees. About six years ago, they were inspired to create a Whiskey Barrel Aged Honey. Friends and family loved the taste and novelty so much that the couple has been crafting small batches of it ever since. Their business, KoopHaus Apiaries, is big on the local farmers market scene, and whenever they set up shop whiskey aficionados stop by and sample their aged honey. “Oh, I can really taste the whiskey!” they almost always say.
The Kubogamells don’t take credit for the idea of barrel-aged honey. However, with no luck finding barrels through local honey vendors, they had the idea of reaching out to 10th Street Distillery in San Jose. Known for their innovative “Shaved, Toasted and Recharred” (STR) triple-cask aging technique, they were happy to oblige and invited the couple to check out their barrels.
When describing the aging process, Arthur is engulfed by the memory of the aroma. “The smell of putting the honey into the whiskey barrel is just amazing because when you open up the barrel, there’s a very, very strong whiskey aroma,” he says. The moment they fill the barrel with honey “it pushes out that aroma and it smells amazing.”
For 90 days the raw honey sits inside the STR oak barrel with layers that were toasted to release sugar that recharred to deepen the flavors. Through this aging method, their honey is exposed to the multiple layers of treated wood, creating a luxurious and unique flavor profile of butterscotch, vanilla and oak. They also just released a new peanut whiskey-barrel-aged honey, adding a smoky nuance to the flavor.
Along with their small-batch Whiskey Barrel Aged Honey, KoopHaus has always highlighted local flavors through sustainable practices and high-quality craft. You can taste it in their Cinnamon Creamed Honey that features a premium organic Ceylon cinnamon, or in their Orange Blossom Honey with floral notes that come directly from the orange groves in Sanger, California. In 2023, they were recipients of a Good Food Award. From categories such as Honey, Charcuterie, Confections, Elixirs and more, the event was filled with incredible tastemakers who, like KoopHaus, were recognized out of over a thousand applicants across the country for exceptionally crafted food and business practices that work towards the good of society and environment. Arthur shares that it was such an exciting experience to be surrounded by so many other creatives and innovators in the food and beverage industry.
When asked what makes KoopHaus honey award-winning, Arthur hypothesizes that it must be some lucky combination of the weather, the plants and his bees. Arthur notes how incredibly active his bees are that even in the semi-wet seasons they seem undeterred. His 60 hives of queens and worker bees travel up to three miles in any direction of the KoopHaus Apiaries in Morgan Hill—from the nearby cherry orchards to the backyards of those increasingly residential foothills to forage nectar and pollen. They harvest up to 4,000 pounds of honey each spring on average. Arthur checks in on them often, easy since they live close by. But underneath that guise of convenience, it is very clear that he simply loves his bees. He performs almost daily inspections to ensure that they are healthy and pest-free, and because of this KoopHaus bees have been fairly healthy over the years with very small losses compared to commercial hives.
When it comes to the taste and flavor of the honey, Arthur again takes no credit. He joyfully shares that every year the flavor of the wildflower honey is a surprise. It all sounds so lovely and fortuitous, but “Beekeeping is hard work,” as spoken by a member of The Appalachian Beekeeping Collective on behalf of all the Honey winners at the Good Food Awards ceremony.
Christine, a third-generation farmer, is the creative and marketing pulse behind KoopHaus. She handles all the bottling, creating labels and products of the hive like her whimsical cat and pleated pear candles, all handcrafted from 100% pure beeswax and cotton wick.
This year, Christine and Arthur have been planting more blooming herbs such as oregano, thyme and mint varieties. When asked if there was any particular reason for these choices, Arthur says, “I’m a plant hoarder.” If I see a plant, I have to plant it. Spoken like a true farmer turned beekeeper. It’s one of the reasons that led to creating KoopHaus in the first place, when they started their first hive in 2010 and noticed that their plants had greater crop yields and blooms after bringing in the bees. It became a wonderfully symbiotic dance of tending to the land and the bees, harvesting crops and honey, and even sharing that food and knowledge with us—the community.
Arthur and Christine absolutely love what they do, a sentiment they hope is reflected in the quality of their products. They also enjoy sharing their beekeeping knowledge with schools and libraries, and welcome businesses to reach out if interested in learning more.
