Joe Tries Mad Honey - The Hallucinogenic Honey from the Himalayas

At some point we should talk about the Mad Honey. Yeah, yeah, well that's how you and I got in touch recently. Right. Yeah, you saw us talking about Mad Honey on the show and you reached out and said I'm actually right now harvesting Mad Honey. Yes. You sent me a photo of you actually doing it right there. I'm gonna grab some from my bag right now. Okay. And this Mad Honey you were in Tibet? Is that where you get it from? This was in Nepal. Very close to Tibet. This is it. Now this looks like store-bought honey because there's a label on there. What that truly is, is I transferred the honey to this grocery store bottle so if I went through customs I wouldn't have any issues. Good move. But that is the same honey I showed you in the video. So if you look at it, you can open it up, you'll see a couple things. You'll see it's a little bit more liquidy than typical honey. Right. Typical golden, you know, in the bottle shaped like a bear honey. And this is supposed to be the honey that makes the trip balls? Yeah. Does it? So I think we should try it in a moment. In a moment? Are you willing to try it? Yeah, I'll try it right now. Don't try it right now. Okay. Okay, hold on. A little bit of build up, a little bit of backstory. Sorry. I'm very controlling. It's okay. So you see it's soupy, you see it's red. Yes. I went to Nepal. Some people know how this works already. These, the honey, I think, I just think we should explain where the honey comes from. Right. The honey comes from these cliffs. There's different places around the world. Do you have a video of you doing it yet or is it not released yet? Not really yet. Not released yet. We can find a video of them harvesting mad honey because it's really fascinating how they have to do it. Yeah. So it was about maybe a 12 hour drive from the capital of Kathmandu that we went to this village of maybe 500 people and we joined these guys as they collected the honey. And they don't have like honey boxes. The honey is on the mountain sides. And they basically risk their lives taking these ladders. They have these ladders, these rope ladders. And the reason they need rope ladders is because they need to be able to hike sometimes up to several hours to go to where the honey is. The honey's not conveniently located. It's located wherever the hell the bees put it. Keep playing it, Jim. And so they take these rolled up ladders and they string it on the cliff. They climb the ladders or descend from the ladders. And then they have to carefully use these long sticks to cut the honeycomb off of the mountainside. Before doing that, they put some pegs into the honeycomb. So this is like a big flat protruding honeycomb coming from the mountainside. And then eventually they cut it off and they lower it down. The people on the bottom then collect the honey and they can start to process it. So there's a couple of things that are interesting here. One is the collection process, which is dangerous and just kind of unbelievable. I mean, one of the scariest, you see all these bees here. I had to wear the bee hat. Nobody messes around. Everyone wears the bee hat. As soon as they get the smoke going, these bees go insane. And you see thousands of bees stinging the shit out of everything and everyone trying to get through people's clothing. And when bees sting, their stinger comes out. It's all just a kamikaze mission for all these different bees. And so all these people are getting stung. So they had the appropriate clothing. But their hands... My guide, who wasn't used to being there, got about four bees inside the hat and that's never what you want. And so their solution to that was to reach to his hat inside the net and pinch the bees inside rather than trying to get them out. They just killed them inside. And so they got the honey. For example, you can see here, they're dumping it out of the basket. There's going to be tons of bees and honey mixed together. When I flew my drone there, I landed the drone and it was wet with bee body parts. I must have shredded a thousand bees just with my drone. So they are on the defense. And before you go there, before you put the smoke, the honeycomb is black because it's completely covered by the bees. But after the smoke comes up, it reveals the actual yellow honeycomb underneath. So that's one interesting aspect to this. So the smoke is to try to calm down these bees, right? To repel them, to make them leave. So how do they do that? They start fires at the base of the cliff? Yes. And these guys are so badass, they know how to start a fire and basically put it into a makeshift backpack and then carry it up. So they're carrying smoke on their back and then dumping it at the base of the cliff and then the smoke goes up and then the bees go insane from there. Is it because the bees know? Are they accustomed to people trying to steal their honey? I do think it puts them in a defensive mode, but also just like a lot of insects don't like smoke. So it's like they know they have to leave because they're smoke, but they want to protect the hives at all costs. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is the hallucinogenic lightheaded effects that are purported to come from eating the honey. So how does that happen? The bees collect, I forget if it's nectar or pollen, from certain types of flowers that grow there locally. And these flowers have some kind of chemicals inside. It creates a neurotoxic effect in your brain when you eat it. So I interviewed a villager. This is what I want to build up a little bit so you can see how gung-ho about trying the honey you still are, but I think we should still absolutely do it together. I went to a villager there. I was thinking everyone's just going to be jacked up on honey all the time and it's a great time. So I talked to this guy. He was the one who owned the cliff where the honey is. And I said, how often do you do it? He goes, I did it 20 years ago. That's the last time. I said, can you walk me through the experience? He said, I took a lot and I couldn't walk for 24 hours. I said, oh, you couldn't walk. Okay. That's pretty extreme. I've heard similar stories from people while I was there. And it seemed interesting because at least in the village I went to, I know it's different in different parts of Nepal, but at least where I went, people seemed like I've done it and I'm good and they didn't really want to do it much more. So why are they collecting it? Well, there's a big market in places like Japan and especially Korea, they said, where people want to buy the honey and eat the honey, which is interesting because I looked it up and it's actually illegal in Korea, it said. So this brings me to that day I tried a bit. I tried about a spoon and I got scared about trying too much because we still had a hike an hour out of there than a three hour drive. I'm like, I need to use my legs. But my brother, my brother joined me, my brother Scott joined me at a hotel in St. Cloud recently about a week and a half ago. And he knew I had the honey because I talked to a bring it here. And he's like, I want to try the honey. And he's a bit of a hater. And he's like, it's fucking honey. What's going to happen? And I got to go to bed because I got work to do the next day. And saw me in his room across from mine at the hotel and I give him a couple spoons and I'm like, you should just do a couple spoons, wait 30 minutes and see how you feel. He goes, yeah, no, just give me more. You're going to sleep soon. Just give me more. If I want more, I'll take it. So while I'm still there, he takes more, maybe five, six spoons. Then I go, all right, I got to go to bed. Have a good time. Let me know. Actually, I said, why don't you text me the effects during the evening and I'll know what to expect when I do it. So here's what he said. I've got his text right here. Feels good. Warm, warm breath. He goes on. Totally legit. All right. Hater vibes. Gone. My body's on fire in a very positive way. It's weird. My scalp feels hot. My muscles tingle. So far, good. Might get nauseous. Take less. I can't tell. Not good. Regret. Very bad. Just don't. Stupid. I keep hoping I'm done. I'm so sick. At 5.40 a.m., I should maybe eat a banana. So that's my brother. So how much in total did he take? Six spoons. Six of this spoon. I brought this spoon because I needed a measurement system that was accurate. I need to know exactly which spoon you used. The basic plastic ice cream spoon. Yeah. And so this is not a deep, big spoon. It's another tablespoon. Took six of those. Yeah, about six. So I think we should try it out. And maybe we start... Sounds terrible. No, but if you do too much, it's shit. Are you sure? We got to find out, Joe. But do we have to find out here? How long does it take? I think we'll feel it. The show will be over before we really feel it. How much time do we have left? As long as we want, really. Why not try a little bit? Okay, let's try a little bit. Try a little bit. I don't know if you want to share this plastic spoon. I also brought these. These are a little bit deeper. Okay. This is what was in my... I think I should use a regular spoon. Oh, this one? It doesn't matter. I was going to use the spoon that was used. Okay. So you got to mix it up first. Okay. Mix it up real good. I mixed it up before coming here, but it separates. I'm not sure what's separating in there. It's very liquidy. It's very different than honey, like regular honey. I'm just going to have a little bit. Smell like honey? Yeah. It tastes like honey too. Do a whole spoon. No, I'm going to do a half spoon. Okay. You got plans to do? Okay. Okay. Okay. You got plans tonight? Yeah, I got a show I got to do. I can't have fake legs. My legs aren't moving. Fake legs. Wow, it feels weird. Yeah, so don't drink any water. I'll take a little bit too. It definitely feels different than regular honey. I think I took too much. Yeah? Let's find out. So... You want to put the lid on it? Sure. I'll leave this one here for you. Thank you. You can try it on your own time. Uh-oh. Thanks, guys. You don't want to leave me alone to try things on my own time. I've gone down dark roads. Do you feel anything? Because right away I feel it in the back of my throat. Yeah, I feel it in the back of my throat. Itchy. Like I want a cough on it and clear my throat. Yeah, it's almost got like a... It's not hot like hot peppers, but it's got like that feeling like you're reacting to it almost like a hot pepper a little bit. Like a whoo. Yeah. Yeah. Like I want a cough when I have it. Sorry. So I'm told, at least by this guy in the mountain in Nepal, don't drink any water. He's like, you're just going to want to drink more and more water. And look, I don't know if this is like a redneck, like mountain bro speak, bro science. But he said, if you... Sorry. Yeah, I'm feeling it. At least here in my throat I'm feeling it. How did your brother feel after it was all over? So this guy said, if you drink water, you're just going to want to keep drinking more and more water and you'll never stop drinking water and it'll make you more sick. I don't know. So my brother hung over the next day. He felt stiff. He said that... So what happens is it can lower your blood pressure. And I think that's what makes it difficult to move and to walk. So your next question might be, why the fuck do people want to take this? Right. I don't know. I couldn't figure it out. And so I think maybe in the right dose, like too much of anything is bad. A little bit of cough syrup. Great. The whole bottle, I did that one time. Huge mistake. You know when you watch the news and they're like, hey, kids are doing this and they shouldn't be and you're like, fuck, you can get high from cough syrup? Right. I was like, I'm going to do that. And I did it and it was like the worst 24 hours of my life. I think a little bit of honey in your tea at night might calm you down. It might be soothing. I'm not sure. But to me, it's unclear why people are into it. Folks in Korea seem to like it a lot. At least that's what I learned in Nepal. So what's the recommended dose? Yeah, that's the tricky part. There's not one? There's not one. And then there's no way of figuring out how potent. It's not like when you buy marijuana edibles, you can figure out how many milligrams are in you. Really? Well, at least it's a rough estimate, right? Here it says, Mad Honey's been commonly used as an aphrodisiac sexual stimulant in alternative therapy for gastrointestinal disorders, peptic ulcer disease, dyspepsia, and gastritis, and for hypertension for a long time. See what the recommended dose of Mad Honey is. So they're selling a bunch of Mad Honey online, but is that real or is a lot of it phony belonging? It's hard to say. And you know, that's the trouble I had even when I was there. And luckily I had a fixer, a local producer who I could really trust. And he said it's a real deal. I trusted him. As soon as I tried it, I felt something like, you know, I felt it in my throat. I felt, did you feel that your face get a little bit warm or flush? No. No. Maybe it didn't take enough. Maybe. Hopefully. But hopefully. I don't know if this is the place, but madhoney.net says one to three tablespoons. But please read carefully. Each of us is unique. Our body chemistry, genetics, tolerance, lifestyle, and environment makes us all very different for every person. Using the appropriate Mad Honey amount is a personal individual process. And as such, there is no one size fits all dose. Like edibles. Yeah, I like edibles. Jamie can eat edibles all day long. Yeah, I can probably have the whole jar. You should try it. I'm going to leave it here. I have two jars. I have one in my suitcase. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Maybe I'll find this perfect ratio and it'll be the perfect sleeping aid. But I do think there's probably a lot of bullshit online because how hard would it be to take this and mix it with 10 gallons of honey and be like, yeah, it's mad honey. Would I put a little red dye in there? Yeah, our friend, the beekeeper, Erica, what's her last name? Sorry, no worries. We had a local beekeeper on recently. It was really fascinating, very interesting conversation. And she was saying that a lot of honey that you buy, particularly honey from overseas, is not really honey. It's like partly honey, but they mix it in with corn syrup and it's just to make it cheap. Oh, I think American Thompson. Just like maple syrup. Most of the honey in the US is that corn syrup. Most of it? Really? I think so. But that's based on fucking nothing. That's just my intuition. She said you have to buy local honey, buy local honey from local beekeepers. I totally agree. Let's do it. So that's it. But you feel good now, right? Yeah, I feel fine. Is there a time where you would try more to see what it did? Yeah, I'll try more if I get out of this, okay? Oh, I think you'll be fine. I think you just kind of taste it a little bit. So I'll try a full tablespoon. For me, when I had it in the mountain, I didn't hallucinate, but lights seemed a bit more vivid. And if I looked at lights, the lights behind you and looked away, they were still kind of in my vision. It's just fascinating that the locals are like, yeah, I did it 20 years ago. I'm good. Yeah. Well, right. And that's what made me even more apprehensive about trying it. Yeah. So.