Pollinator Punch: Four drinks to try that support pollinators and their habitat

You don’t have to be a beekeeper, butterfly farmer or professional landscaper to help the world’s pollinators toward a better future. According to the North American Pollinator Partnership Protection Campaign, change can start in your own home. Your yard is an obvious place to make strides, but the kitchen is an equally important battleground.

Thanks to the predictable economics of supply and demand, buying pollinator-created products can give entire species staying power. Honey is a prime example: If people didn’t have a taste for it, there would likely be far fewer honeybees, and as long as it’s in demand, suppliers will do their best to keep the bees thriving. The same logic holds true for other products made with ingredients vital to pollinators.

In that spirit, we’ve rounded up three drink recipes made with a pollinator-related ingredient: one coffee, one cocktail and one tea. The Bee Pollen Latte made by downtown Boise café Moss Coffee & Tea is brewed with Idaho honey and topped with Stakich bee pollen from Kentucky.

“They work as a great dynamic duo,” said Moss barista Jasmin Reyna. “[The bee pollen] helps kind of balance the honey, but it has a stronger taste so [the honey] helps sweeten it up.”

In the hot hemp-milk-based drink, the chalky pollen melts away, giving each caffeinated sip herbaceous notes.

The Bee’s Ankles cocktail served at French bistro Petite 4 in Boise is made with sake, lavender-honey-cardamom syrup, lemon juice and tupelo honey flown in from Savannah, Georgia. It comes decorated with a sprig of lavender, which is a favorite of bees, and though Petite 4 co-owner David “DK” Kelly declined to share the proportions of ingredients, it’s a refreshing combination in any ratio.

Finally, the Farm & Forage tea blend from The Vervain Collective, which sells its products at Garden City’s Roots Zero Waste Market, is a friend of both bees and butterflies. It combines nettle leaves, rose hips, basil, rosemary and sage for a tart, fragrant brew. Roses are pollinator magnets and beloved by bees, and nettle leaves are a favorite egg-laying spot for butterflies. Though Vervain sources its herbs from Oregon and California, co-founder Dr. Nicole Pierce said that all of the ingredients “are plants that can be found in Idaho’s farms, forests and backyards.”

North American Pollinator Partnership Protection Campaign
Moss Coffee & Tea | @mossboise
Petite 4 | @eatatpetite4
Roots Zero Waste Market | @rootszerowastemarket