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We go through a 2 lb. 14 oz. jar of honey every couple of weeks. My dad the backyard beekeeper may raise an eyebrow at any child of his buying honey. But that’s as far as his protests go, because the cost of shipping alone is prohibitive, never mind the logistics.

Havoc wreaked  by a leaking bottle of maple syrup inside a checked bag a few years back serves as a lesson to us all. Luckily Eugene’s gold is close by, so we don’t waste the bees’ hard work. Better treat ’em right.

Our household honey usage rate doesn’t vary much from season to season but there seem to be new uses for it every day. The Hibernation Diet hasn’t really caught on – my liver has no use for alternative fuels – but every recipe that can use honey, does. It’s the base for a lot of beverages, adult and otherwise. There are moments when simple syrup doesn’t live up to its name (e.g., we’re scraping the bottom of the sugar bin), and that’s when we reach for the jar.

Lots of honey, lots of jars…it’s taken me almost as long to get around to the point here as it did to come up with my best-reuse plan for the honey-coated jar.

Years ago, my parents toured the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder. The highlight of the trip was the mint room, stuffed to the ceiling with peppermint leaves. It made an impression on my parents as few things do and the effect of their rave review  (coupled by happenstance with a bad Mighty Leaf Mint Melange experience; it’s now referred to as Mint Menagerie, schmancy silk bags be damned) was to make me buy mint tea exclusively from Celestial Seasonings.

If you look at their peppermint tea bags, you can see that they’re filled with green leaves – straight peppermint – instead of being blended with sticks and rocks and whatever else – okay fine, actual tea leaves from tea plants grown on tea plantations. Some people might not call this tea. I call it my most refreshing beverage – it’s herbal, and it’s delicious. I like it hot, I like it iced. The only trouble with icing it is sweetening it properly (just a tad).

Perhaps you see the inevitable happy ending as I did not until yesterday. I am now halfway through my first leftover honey jar used to brew and store mint tea concentrate (3 of the 2-bag packets; no strings, staples or other folderol to worry about leaching effects from), which goes over ice to half-fill a 16-oz. glass, then gets topped off with water.

The amount of honey left in the jar is just right for a jarful of strong peppermint tea, which turns into about twice as much in the glass. It is one of those achievable, sustainable sort of usage pathways that make me happy to be alive. If only the next step would reveal itself.

Actually, I seem to remember that Eugene & fam have a deal in place to take the jars back, wash, sterilize, refill and relabel them. There might even be a discount in it. Wouldn’t that just beat all.