September is National Honey Month — and surely one should need no greater reason than that to indulge in the ingredient’s sweet, gooey goodness.The Newport, A Gastropub, located at the Fairmont Southampton hotel, is hoping to create a buzz with a month full of exciting appetisers featuring honey.On offer until tomorrow, is a Crispy Pan-Roasted Duck Breast with summer peach, mango, and Bermuda honey balsamic dressing.Executive sous chef Michael Scott said his goal was to balance sweet and spicy flavours in each dish.“When you are putting honey with food, you can do it for desserts of course. But when you use it in savoury dishes, you always balance it with an acid or spice and that counteracts the flavours or sweetness.“If it was just something like honey, strawberries and olive oil all you would get is sweetness. There would be no other contrasting flavour.”Last week the chef prepared a crowd-pleasing dish with honey, chipotle spiced grilled shrimp and a salad with heirloom tomatoes, baby spinach, and ginger dressing.And from this Monday until September 30, the restaurant will be offering an appetiser with Local Honey-Ginger Glazed Chicken Wings and apple celery slaw.Mr Scott said: “The chicken wings are handmade here and fresh. We marinate them in a honey and ginger sauce and it’s almost like the same concept as a honey ginger glace, but it’s both sweet and spicy.“The celery and apply salad is refreshing and makes for a good combination with the wings.”The restaurant will be utilising the hotel’s own honey, which has been naturally harvested on the property for the past three years.Mr Scott said: “In the past six or seven years Fairmont has taken an initiative to start to place bee hives at some of their properties overseas. “They started in the city at places like Royal York in Toronto and the Vancouver Waterfront property, which were the first two to do it and built these hives right on the roof.“After that, it started to filter down to all Fairmont locations. It’s a great organic and natural way of preserving and bringing something fresh to Fairmont and since then everyone has followed suit.”He wondered why the idea hadn’t been adopted in Bermuda and contacted a local bee keeper and Quincey Burgess, from the Department of Agriculture, for additional support.Both men were excited about the idea and the local bee keeper continues to maintain the hives and take out the honey.The hives typically produce about 50lbs of honey each year, but the amount varies from year to year.Mr Scott said the honey also tastes noticeably different from the kind you buy in stores. “It has a much smoother texture and is not as sweet,” he said. “It’s just 100 percent fresh and natural and doesn’t have any fresh syrup or corn syrup added in.”The flavour of the honey also depends on the season and the flowers that are in bloom.Throughout September, the hotel will also be offering a cocktail called Spice Tea, utilising Captain Morgan spiced rum, Bénédictine liqueur, Fairmont Turtle Hill Honey, Fairmont Eclipse iced tea, available at The Dock at The Waterlot Inn.The Afternoon Tea, available in the Jasmine Lounge, also utilises the locally harvested honey.To reserve a space at The Newport, A Gastropub, to sample September’s Honey Month dishes, phone 238-8000.