The Mad Honey Experience: High in the Himalayas

Bastow on his quest for mad honey in Nepal, and on his way to the Himalayan Mountains.

A Deadly Sweet Obsession

On a sheer Himalayan cliffside, a lone figure dangles from a handmade rope ladder hundreds of feet above the ground. Smoke from smoldering grass drifts upward, stirring a cloud of giant bees into a furious buzz around him. One slip of his foot would mean a free fall to certain death, but Bastow doesn't flinch. Eyes fixed on the prize, he uses a long bamboo pole with a blade to slice into a massive, glowing yellow honeycomb on the rock face. Honey—mad honey—drips into his basket as angry Himalayan giant honeybees sting his hands, each venomous jab dulled only by a swig of local moonshine.

This is the price of admission for the world's rarest, most dangerous honey, and Bastow has willingly paid it in pursuit of a dream and a high. It sounds like a rare and exotic honey tucked away in remote mountains, guarded by cliffs and swarms of wild bees. But for Bastow—a daring, thrill-chasing Australian—it became an obsession. "Probably about five or ten years ago, I read an article online about honey that could get you high," Bastow recalls. "I noticed that no one was selling it, and I thought it might be a good opportunity, if it was real, to go out and try to find it."

That curiosity set him on a dangerous odyssey from the Black Sea shores of Turkey to the high mountains of Nepal, chasing legends and bees in equal measure. In true Indiana Jones fashion, what began as a wild idea turned into a globe-trotting, life-risking adventure—equal parts danger, insanity, and sheer bee-stung adrenaline.

Black Sea Odyssey

Bastow's journey kicked off in Turkey, one of only two places known for producing "mad honey." He touched down in the Turkish Black Sea region armed with little more than a translator and a stubborn determination. "I journeyed down there and had to go into the villages to speak to the locals about the honey," he says, describing how he wandered through rural villages searching for rumors of intoxicating honey. "And I got to try it from the actual hives. And sure enough, it turned out to be real."

In Turkey, mad honey is known as Deli Bal—literally "crazy honey"—and locals have used it for ages as a recreational high and a traditional remedy. Beekeepers in the Kackar Mountains have harvested this honey for centuries, carefully situating hives among fields of rhododendron flowers whose nectar contains a natural toxin. Sitting cross-legged on a villager's home floor, Bastow first tasted Deli Bal. The thick, reddish honey burned slightly down his throat—a telltale sign of the toxin lacing the nectar. Within minutes, a warmth washed over him. "I felt the euphoric effects of the Turkish mad honey," he remembers—a gentle, tranquil buzz radiating through the body, "like I was getting a scalp massage," as one taster described it. It was unlike any drug or drink he'd tried: no visuals, just a woozy, sedative relaxation and a feeling that time had slowed to a crawl. But as mellow as the high was, Bastow knew mad honey carried a dark side. In larger doses, it can turn on you, causing nasty poisoning—basically, a bad trip that can last a full day. He'd heard the legends: how this very honey once got an entire Roman army "fucked up and subsequently slaughtered by their foes" two millennia ago. In 65 BCE, King Mithridates of Pontus supposedly left toxic honeycombs in the path of invading Roman soldiers, intoxicating them so entirely that his forces cut them down with ease. Even Aristotle wrote of this Black Sea honey that "healthy men go mad" if they overindulge in it. As Bastow swirled the bizarre nectar on his tongue in that Turkish village, he felt history and myth intertwine in his veins. It was real, all right—and it was potent. By the time he'd wiped the last crimson smears of honey from his fingers, Bastow's mind was made up. This strange concoction of bee alchemy and floral poison had a serious kick and potential. "Sure enough, it turned out to be real," he says of that first trip, and he realized no one was selling this stuff to the world yet. The opportunity was as sweet as the honey itself. He envisioned an international trade, bringing mad honey out of the shadows for adventurers and psychonauts everywhere. But first, he'd need the most potent supply. The Turks had shown him the door, and now he had to walk through the gates of the Himalayas, where an even crazier prize awaited.

High in the Himalayas

If Turkey was Bastow's warm-up, Nepal was the main event. Word had it that Nepalese mad honey was two to three times stronger than the Turkish stuff. Blame it on the bees—the Himalayan giant honeybee (Apis dorsata laboriosa), the largest in the world—and the rich rhododendron blooms carpeting Nepal's mountainsides. Whatever the reason, Bastow knew he had to source Nepal's so-called "red honey," even if it meant venturing into some of the world's most remote corners. He arrived in Kathmandu and quickly learned that mad honey isn't something you pick up at a market stall in the city. Bastow would have to trek for days into the rugged hills, far beyond where roads end, to find it. The Gurung people have hunted wild cliff honey in central Nepal for centuries. Their biannual honey hunts—once in the spring, once in the fall—are the stuff of legend, equal parts harvest and high-risk ritual. Bastow hired local guides and traveled to a village perched in the foothills of the Annapurna range, a settlement so isolated it felt frozen in time. There, the elders welcomed him with flower garlands and cups of raki, a homemade alcoholic beverage, as if he were an old friend. But amid the hospitality, they made one thing clear: if he wanted their honey, he'd have to see what it takes to get it.

At dawn, Bastow joined a band of honey hunters gearing up for the cliff climb. They were primarily stocky, weathered men in their 40s and 50s, with a few younger daredevils in tow, all sharing the same last name, Gurung—a mark of their local clan. They looked like guerrilla beekeepers, dressed in a patchwork of makeshift protection—old Dhaka shawls with cloth veils, layers of jackets duct-taped at the cuffs. Before setting out, the chief of the honey hunters, a wiry 65-year-old named Bais Bahadur Gurung, gave the younger men a grave pep talk. "Only those who can control their fears and remain unflinching in the face of death can be a honey hunter," he said as Bastow listened, goosebumps rising on his arms. The older man scanned the group, locking eyes with a newbie barely out of his teens. "Old men may have experience," Bais added with a wry grin, "but the young men have balls." It was equal parts warning and dare. Everyone knew that in a few hours, hanging off a cliff, guts would matter as much as know-how.

The Honey Hunters

Not long after sunrise, the team reached the base of a towering cliff dotted with dozens of golden semicircles—wild beehives clinging to the rock. The roar of a river echoed from the valley below as the men lit a heap of green grass and leaves. Acrid smoke billowed upward, enveloping the hives to agitate and disorient the bees. Then came the main event: the climb. A rope ladder, woven from bamboo and knotted cords, was anchored to a tree at the clifftop and unfurled like a ragged banner down the rock face. This was the only thing separating a honey hunter from the abyss. One experienced hunter—a fearless man named Devi Bahadur Nepali—volunteered to go first as Bastow, and the rest watched from below with bated breath. "At first, I was very scared going down the ladder," admitted another hunter, Tulsi Gurung, describing the moment. "But when I see the hives, I get filled with power and become fearless." With that same resolve, Devi Bahadur descended into the haze of bees and smoke. From the ground, Bastow shielded his eyes and craned his neck upward. High above, Devi clung to the swaying ladder with one hand and brandished a long bamboo stick in the other. At the end of the stick was a sharp crescent blade, which he swung methodically to hack away at the giant combs glued to the rock. Piece by piece, slices of honeycomb the size of serving platters rained down, oozing with dark red honey. Each time Devi sliced off a chunk, he hollered and lowered it into a basket tied to a rope for the crew below. Bastow dashed forward with the others to steady the basket as it landed, his boots skidding on sticky drips of honey coating the rocks. Immediately, the ground crew swarmed the fallen combs—brushing off angry bees, breaking open the wax, and filtering the precious liquid gold into metal pots.

The air was a chaos of sensations: the deep hum of thousands of bees, the smell of smoke and wild honey, the shouts of men in Nepali dialect, and the coppery taste of adrenaline on Bastow's tongue. Bees the size of his thumb dive-bombed everyone around. Even on the ground, Bastow felt the hot sting of a bee on his neck, then another on his arm. He winced but kept working—he'd come too far to let a few bee stings break his focus. High above, Devi Bahadur moved with uncanny grace under fire, enduring dozens of stings without a flicker of hesitation. By the time he clambered back up to solid ground, his hands were grotesquely swollen from venom. He promptly took a long pull from a plastic bottle of local liquor to numb the pain, his face breaking into a triumphant grin. On that single morning, the team harvested approximately 34 liters (around 9 gallons) of mad honey from the cliff, a bounty hard-won from the jaws of nature. When a ladle of the fresh honey was offered around, Bastow did not decline. He sipped the thick liquid from a tin spoon, and a familiar tingling warmth blossomed at the back of his throat, slowly spreading through his body. It was as if the day's fear and exhaustion melted into a gentle, full-body buzz. "I feel it at the back of my throat," Joe Rogan had remarked in a podcast after trying a half teaspoon of this very honey—and Bastow now understood precisely what the famously drug-savvy comedian meant. The honey was alive inside him, a mix of equal parts pleasure and poison. In that village clearing at the foot of the cliff, under a blood-orange sunset, Bastow felt a serene high take hold—a traveler's reverie of accomplishment, danger, and awe.

Travel Along the Honey Road

That day, Bastow learned why the locals treat mad honey with reverence and caution. The Gurung hunters themselves only consume tiny doses—a spoonful or two—as a prized medicine and mild intoxicant for special occasions. In small amounts, it's said to ease joint pain and impart a pleasant, weed-like high. But if you push your luck, the "madness" in the honey strikes back. One village honey trader recounted the story of greedy souls who downed ladlefuls and paid dearly: "First, the body feels a need to purge—vomit or worse," he described. "After the purge, you alternate between light and dark. You can see, and then you can't see… You can't move, but you're still completely lucid." That kind of immobilizing trip can last a full day, with a sinister buzzing sound throbbing in your head the whole time.

As Bastow packed jars of his newly acquired honey for the journey home, he was keenly aware of the fine line between euphoria and agony that this substance straddles. "Don't try and get too crazy with this stuff—the recommended dose is just one teaspoon, and you should not take any more than that," Bastow stresses, adamant that users respect the honey's power. After all, this concoction is technically a toxin, not just a psychedelic confection. He had seen with his own eyes what the Gurung went through to obtain it; a casual thrill-seeker popping six spoonfuls like it was regular honey could end up in a hospital or worse. If you ever needed proof that nature's most exotic highs have strings (and stingers) attached, mad honey is Exhibit A. Bastow's dangerous gambit has begun to pay off.

Back in Australia, he now ships this once-elusive product to customers worldwide. Each batch of honey he sells has been lab-tested for purity and consistency—a nod to modern quality control born from ancient traditions. What was once limited to the rituals of remote villages can now arrive at a psychonaut's doorstep in a jar labeled with a honeybee logo. With demand soaring and supply forever limited by the brutal realities of the harvest, mad honey has become liquid gold. In Nepal, it fetches $600–$800 per pound on the black market, and Bastow's boutique export is no cheaper—yet enthusiasts and the curious are lining up for a taste of the mystique.

Even mainstream media has caught wind of it. When YouTube food adventurer Sonny Side presented Mad Honey on The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan himself approached it with wide-eyed caution, taking just a half-spoon while joking, "I can't have my legs not moving" before a show. The look on Rogan's face—a mix of intrigue and "what have I gotten into?"—said everything: mad honey is not your average edible. For Andrew Bastow, the mad honey experience has been a trip in every sense. He's navigated language barriers and treacherous mountain trails, dangled beside death on a rope ladder, and suffered bee venom and occasional bouts of fear, all to bottle some ancient Himalayan magic for the modern world. Along the way, he's forged unlikely friendships with tribal honey hunters and tasted the raw, wild experience that most of us only read about. There's a photo on his phone that he likes to show skeptics: in it, he stands grinning on a Nepalese cliff ledge, his face smeared with honey and sweat, holding a slab of red honeycomb aloft like a trophy. It's absurd and fantastic—much like the entire journey that led him there. "This is pure mad honey," his product labels read, "known as cliff honey by the locals… harvested from high in the mountains of Nepal." For Bastow, those words aren't marketing copy; they're a testament to a hard-won adventure. As night falls in a faraway village, you can picture him celebrating with his Gurung tribes, passing around a small wooden spoon and a jar of the red treasure they nearly died to obtain. They dip in and taste one by one, letting the warmth and calm wash over them. In that moment of communion between an Aussie thrill-seeker and the Himalayan honey hunters, the mad honey casts its ancient spell. It's the taste of danger, discovery, and a little drop of delirium—a Joe Rogan high, if ever there was one, straight from the cliffs of Nepal to the buzzing edges of reality.

By Jim Belfort April 5, 2025 MHO