The farmhouse-style building buzzes with activity. Visitors walk out of the front door carrying brown paper bags, stamped with the company’s logo, and full of products made from its namesake bees. Staff deliver beautiful charcuterie boards and scrumptious-looking sandwiches to tables carefully situated in the shade on the expansive wraparound porch. Visitors recline in inviting oversized chairs or on picnic benches in the gazebo, as giggling kids explore the lavender fields flanked by friendly dogs who seem excited to follow along for an adventure. Life just feels a little sweeter at Honey Buzz Winery.
Creek House Honey Farm’s store has been open just outside of Canyon since 2018. Owners Paige and George Nester grew their beekeeping hobby into a business selling raw honey and beeswax products before establishing the store a few years later. Experiments with beer-brewing provided the background George needed to brew honey-based mead, and the Nesters expanded the business to include Honey Buzz Winery a few years ago.
The winery offers many flavors of mead, including the Apple-Cyser—which is made on-site—and the Queen’s Revenge. Both have received awards from the Texas Mead Cup. Mead is neither beer nor wine, but its own category of beverage. It is a sweet drink, but the honey base does not overpower the subtle flavors of apple and orange that brighten the Cyser, or the popular Queen’s Revenge, which is flavored with orange-blossom honey. Playful seasonal flavors made on the farm, like Sweet Tea and Cranberry Orange, also rotate on the mead menu. Meads provide the base for the adults-only Slushees, which come in flavors like Mead-a-Rita, Sangria, Daiquiris, and more. Other meads, Texas wine, and several flavors of mimosas are also available, along with non-alcoholic drinks. These also are sweetened with honey, including Honey Lemonade, Honey Root Beer, or tea and coffee.
But it’s not just beverages on the menu. Honey Buzz Winery offers soup, salads and sandwiches for lunch, every day. The Creek House Salad is a mix of flavorful textures, including greens, goat cheese, cucumbers, carrots and bacon bits, with either chicken or pork tenderloin added for protein. For the dressing, of course, add the sweet, creamy, tangy and perfectly balanced homemade honey mustard.
The hearty New Porter salad represents the winery’s take on a cobb salad, with a base of Brussels sprouts and kale, plus chicken, cashews, walnuts, apples, raisins, bacon, and hard-boiled egg, served with a delicious and bright house-made champagne vinaigrette.
The chicken salad is a delicious mix of chicken, craisins, walnuts, celery, apples, and mayo. It balances sweet, savory, crunchy and soft and is perfect on a croissant (the Little Red Hen), or as a salad on a bed of greens (the Birds and Bees). It’s best finished with a drizzle of the honey mustard dressing.
Locally made Sweet Revenge Jalapeño Mustard makes the Sweet Revenge sandwich a standout. It combines ham, cheese, spinach and tomato served on a croissant. The mustard is a delicious addition to the buttery, flaky croissant and balances the sweet sliced ham perfectly.
Try the warm Honey Melt, made with toasted wheat-berry bread, which encases melted cheddar cheese, thin-sliced sweet and crunchy apple, smoky thick-cut bacon, ham, and their can’t-get-enough-of-it honey mustard dressing. (Let’s be honest: This diner asked if the honey mustard dressing is available to purchase in bulk. Unfortunately, it’s not. But it can be ordered on the side as a dippable sauce for nearly anything else on the menu.)
Creek House Honey Farm and Honey Buzz Winery
5005 4th Ave.
Canyon, TX 79015
Lunch served Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Sunday, 12-3 p.m.
