Petaluma Profile: Market vendor does for honey what winemakers do with grapes

“When you drink wine,” Raul Dominguez said, “there are layers of flavors.”

Wine aficionados will consider the initial impression ‒ light or heavy; crisp, creamy, sweet or dry? Then comes the wine’s actual taste: fruit perhaps, or spice, or cedar? Finally, the finish at the back of the mouth and the last flavor impression ‒ more fruit, or maybe butter or oak?

Dominguez worked in the restaurant business, he explained, for 22 years. Food and wine weren’t just job interests. They became passions.

But then, in March of 2020, COVID-19 arrived and life turned upside down.

Restaurants were among the hardest hit. It was time for him to step back and look at where he’d been. But more importantly, to look at where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do with, as poet Mary Oliver wrote, his “one wild and precious life.”

The answer, for him, lay in honey.

“If not now,” he asked, “when?”

Honey has been in existence as far back as we can record, according to The Honey Association. Cave paintings in Spain from 7,000 BC show the earliest records of beekeeping. Fossils of honey bees date back about 150 million years.

Dominguez wanted to do with honey what winemakers do with wine. It turns out, he discovered, one can have the same flavor layers, blends and melds with honey when one works with it the way he does, infusing it with spices, herbs and/or fruits.

Honey, he has found, has huge health benefits, including antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. It can help with allergies, has antimicrobial properties and can assist in helping the body with detoxification.

“It’s a natural booster for the immune system,” he said, and is, of course, organic. He calls it “the power of nature,” adding that “nature has its own flavors.”

Honey is easy to use as a spread or topping.

“The idea,” Dominguez said, “was to have fun with it.”

And clearly, that’s just what he’s done. Dominguez noted that his Crazy Honey blends can work in salad dressings, baked goods, mocktails and more.

Here’s a look at some of his creative blends. Sumac-raspberry; coffee-cocoa-cinnamon; chlorella-mint-cardamom; turmeric-black pepper-cardamom-ginger; black cumin-cloves-cardamom-black pepper; and pineapple-lime-cayenne. That last one he calls “Skinny,” and the three flavors have the wine effect, moving from exotic and fruity to tart and then finally, the mouth-tingling heat of the cayenne.

Three-and-a-half years after his initial idea, Crazy Honey ‒ the company he created during the pandemic ‒ is featured at eight farmers markets in Sonoma and Marin counties, including Petaluma’s Tuesday morning market in front of the community center and the Saturday afternoon market in Walnut Park.

“It’s a beautiful concept,” he said, “based on the power of nature. I can bring the flavors and benefits to people’s tables.”

Dominguez works seemingly non-stop. His one day off, Monday, is dedicated to making more honey blends to offer. This is his first year of doing so many farmers markets, he said, and he’s enjoying it immensely as customers can tell from his warm manner and wide smile. He offers sample tastes of some of his flavors and different honey-flavored beverages. A honey-lemon-hibiscus-ginger iced drink met with approval from everyone tasting it.

His process of infusion takes time, he explained, demonstrating with a jar of a rich brown honey and saying that it began pale but, as the flavors matured together, the color deepened.

Dominguez likes everything about farmers markets, he said, starting with the family environment.

“People enjoy themselves here. There’s happiness and it feels free,” he acknowledged. “I loved working in restaurants, but now, to be working outdoors. It is a new concept, but people are getting used to the idea.”