12.30pm Honey Tasting with Jess Locarnini

Join Honey Sommelier Jess Locarnini for a tasting journey that is bound to excite your tastebuds and teach you about the many different flavours of honey.

Jess is a Beastie Boys fan who tastes a lot of honey. In that order… sometimes simultaneously. She also thinks that Australian honey is the best in the world.

Her love of Australian honey has driven her to carve out a career as Australia's foremost Honey Sommelier. But unlike a restaurant sommelier who recommends wine, Locarnini works in the field of honey.

The Melbourne-based marketing professional has trained with – and received official certification from the world’s best – the American Honey Tasting Society and the Italian Honey Commission. She has now brought these skills home and is applying them to our unique Australian honey.

Her obsession with honey and bees started at an early age and eventually led her to create Honey Merchant in 2018. She’s passionate to share her knowledge and is set to launch a honey tasting mentorship later this year to inspire a new wave of Australian honey connoisseurs. Currently she works with fellow beekeepers, chefs and foodies to draw attention to the unique and complex characteristics of Australian honeys through education, pairings and tastings.

As Jess says: "Australia is a land of extremes filled with many challenges our bees and beekeepers adapt to, including fire, drought and flood. This is reflected in the complex taste of our honeys. The unique and diverse flavour profiles we have here in Australia deserve to be celebrated.”