Abstract:
Honey wine is an alcoholic beverage developed by the fermentation of natural bee honey. It is a
better way of imparting nutraceutical value to an internationally recognized beverage type, where
today‟s health concerned consumer patterns have a developing trend towards nutraceuticals.
Additionally, it adds value to local bee honey production. In this study, the effects of Physico-
chemical parameters; pH, Brix, titratable acidity, and colour of the bee honey on the sensory and
Physico-chemical properties of developed honey wine were examined. Bee honey samples were
collected from two different geographic areas of the country, Anuradhapura and Matale. Initially, the
pH, Brix, titratable acidity, and colour of the bee honey were measured using standard AOAC
methods. Honey wine was developed using both the samples and kept for maturation for 30 days
under similar conditions at room temperature (around 300 C). A sensory evaluation was conducted to
identify the organoleptic properties of honey wine, using a 30-membered panel using a 5-point
hedonic scale. The bee honey sample collected from Anuradhapura showed, pH, Brix, titratable
acidity, and colour values, 3.87±0.02, 73.73±0.49%, 0.52±0.03 g/100ml and (L*=55.73, a*=29.15,
b*=59.35) respectively. While the same parameters, of bee honey sample collected from Matale,
showed 3.5±0.01, 80.2±0.21%, 0.65±0.21 g/100ml and (L*=62.03, a*=20.66, b*=49.87)
respectively. Those Physico-chemical properties were significantly different from each other for the
two bee honey samples whereas, the honey wines prepared from two bee honey samples also showed
a significant difference in sensory properties. The developed wine using bee honey from
Anuradhapura showed better organoleptic preference; for colour, appearance, aroma,
mouthfeel/body, taste, alcoholic flavour and overall acceptability than the Matale honey wine. The
Physico-chemical properties of both wines have also differed from each other. A higher alcohol
production (8.1%±0.21 V/V) was also evident in Anuradhapura wine samples as the only sugar
source for the fermentation process was given by bee honey. This concludes that even though
developed honey wine with local bee honey is a success, a prior standardization of bee honey is
needed in commercialization. Therefore, the researchers suggest further research on standardizing the
bee honey and optimizing the fermentation process for scaling up for commercial level bee honey
wine production.
Keywords: Honey wine; Bee honey; Organoleptic properties; Physico-chemical properties
