Sweet On Honey

Meet noted food and beverage professionals who are sweet on honey!

Chef David Guas
Bayou Bakery, Coffee Bar & Eatery

Chef David Guas, the owner of Bayou Bakery, Coffee Bar & Eatery, is a bona fide Louisianan through and through. With a passion for all things outdoors given his upbringing in the “Sportsman’s Paradise,” Guas exchanged his years as a corporate, fine-dining pastry chef for a more down-home culinary, entrepreneurial path.

Now he spends his time servicing his patrons in a rustic “funkified” southern-style hangout in Arlington, Virginia, featuring southern comfort fare and his signature desserts. He has a designated area in his eatery that is marked the Sticky Station, which highlights a selection of honey from around the country, especially from Virginia and neighboring states. This passion led him to the National Honey Board, where a sweet partnership was born in 2011.

Guas’s life, hard work, and dessert style (best described as elegant comfort food) are a successful combination. His first cookbook, DamGoodSweet: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth New Orleans Style, was named one of Food & Wine’s “Best New Dessert Cookbooks” of the year, and it was a finalist for both the prestigious International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Award in the American Category and the James Beard Award in the Baking and Dessert Cookbook category.

In addition to a multitude of accolades, Guas recently created several recipes in conjunction with cooking videos for the National Honey Board. In each video, Guas showcases how a simple pantry staple like honey can enhance any meal. In the “Seven Wonders of Honey” video series, Guas explores the culinary benefits of honey. From honey’s humectant nature to its powers of emulsification, Guas highlights how versatile and delicious honey is in a variety of dishes, including Bayou Chewy Honey Bars and Chilled Poached Salmon Salad with Honey Yogurt.

Kim Haasarud
Liquid Architecture

Kim Haasarud is a James Beard-honored mixologist and author, and esteemed beverage consultant to the National Honey Board. She conceives her signature cocktails just as any serious chef would create a specialty dish, taking inspiration from market-fresh, high-quality ingredients. “Cocktails, like food, should be culinary experiences,” says Haasarud. “It is about combining ingredients to create a sensation on the palate and entice all the senses with a combination of flavors, textures, aromas and garnishes.”

Haasarud’s liquid cuisine has stirred up a huge following in both New York and Los Angeles. She has worked with such groups as P.F. Chang’s, Bottega Louie, Four Seasons Resort Maui, Ritz Carlton, Wyndham, TGI Fridays and hundreds of other restaurant and wine and spirit clients.

In addition to a number of national media appearances, Haasarud has been featured at the Aspen Food & Wine festival since 2006 and served as a guest judge on Iron Chef America for the Food Network. She currently writes a monthly column for Redbook Magazine called “Mommy Mixologist.” Haasarud has written a best-selling cocktail series with Wiley & Sons (101 Margaritas, 101 Martinis, 101 Sangrias & Pitcher drinks, 101 Champagne Cocktails, 101 Blender Drinks & 101 Mojitos and other Muddled Drinks). She is an officer in the U.S. Bartenders Guild and a member of Slow Food USA. To read more, click here.

Kathy Casey
Kathy Casey Food Studios – Liquid Kitchen

A celebrated chef, mixologist and pioneer in the bar-chef movement, Kathy Casey is collaborating with the NHB to host the upcoming Honey Beverage Summit in Seattle. Casey is the owner of Kathy Casey Food Studios® – Liquid Kitchen®, a global agency specializing in food, beverage and concept development and all things delicious. She also owns Dish D’Lish® “Food to Go-Go”® cafes as well as Dish D’Lish branded retail and is the author of 10 cookbooks.

A savvy spotter of what's hot in the culinary and cocktail scene, Casey is a frequent presenter at industry events and has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, Food Network’s Unwrapped, the Travel Channel’s Cooking Across America, Fine Living’s Great Cocktails, and CBS This Morning. Her cocktail show, Kathy Casey’s Liquid Kitchen, blends her talent behind the bar and experience as a chef into a creative journey through great drinks inspired by the kitchen. To learn more about Casey, click here.

Charlotte Voisey
William Grant & Sons

Gracing the pages of Tasting Panel’s June issue (“Sweet on Honey” column) is Charlotte Voisey, Portfolio Ambassador for William Grant & Sons. Inspired by the National Honey Board’s 2014 Honey Beverage Summit, Voisey discovered and subsequently championed new ways to think about honey, especially when paired with gin.

She explains her newfound enthusiasm for honey as a cocktail ingredient: “I assumed that every honey would go with gin, but different honeys go well with different styles of gin, bringing out whole new flavor profiles.”

Mat Snapp
Fox Restaurant Concepts

Mat Snapp is Director of Beverage for Phoenix-based Fox Restaurant Concepts (FRC). A recent participant in the 2014 Honey Beverage Summit, Snapp got a bee in his bonnet… Shortly after the honey immersion event, he wholly replaced agave with honey at FRC’s “North” Italian restaurant concept. Snapp can be seen in the Honey Beverage Summit video (see “Honey Happenings,” above), explaining his newfound inspiration regarding honey.

Fox Restaurant Concepts has grown exponentially in its 16 years in business. The Phoenix-based restaurant group’s original Tucson restaurant spurred the development of an additional 39 locations to date, with 14 different concepts in six states. With Snapp at the beverage helm, we expect to keep hearing a buzz about Fox Restaurant Concepts in the years ahead.