Scott Maurer
Domeloz has a dry finish with notes of honey in its aroma and a clean taste.
Dominic DeSano is sweet on bees. Especially their honey.
DeSano first fell in love with honey while working at the Willy Street Co-op. There he met some beekeepers and in short order, he became fascinated with bees and honey. He bought a big batch of honey from the beekeepers and decided to try his hand at making something with it. He’d always had an interest in mead, possibly the first alcoholic beverage made by humans. It is a simple concoction, created by fermenting honey with just water and yeast.
DeSano crafted his first batch of mead in his basement, and continued to dabble with mead making. A few years later, in 2014, DeSano and his partner Laura DiJulius traveled to Brazil. DiJulius grew up in Bahia, Brazil, a region known for its plentiful honey bee population. Using the local honey, DeSano made more mead — and then learned that you can take mead a step further by distilling it into a spirit.
When he returned to Wisconsin, DeSano took some of his mead to Lars Forde, head distiller at the Yahara Bay Distillery in Fitchburg. He worked with Forde to distill the first batch of the honey spirit, which he named “somel” — “only honey” in Latin. He has been distilling somel since 2017 and sells it under his own brand, Domeloz. “Lars said he’d never seen anything like it, and he’s been a distiller for ages,” says DeSano. “It’s smooth but not sweet; it doesn’t taste like anything else.”
Healthy honeybees are key to the creation of somel, and DeSano is passionate about giving them a place to thrive. He has 20 hives set up in Brodhead, Wisconsin, near acres of prairie habitat and the proposed Three Waters Reserve. “You need a biodiverse habitat for bees to make quality honey, and you need a lot of honey to make the somel. It could be great for local farmers and beekeepers, too.”
Unlike the honey liqueur made from beet sugar and honey at Old Sugar Distillery, Domeloz somel is not sweet. It has a dry finish with notes of honey in the aroma, and a clean taste. Domeloz somel is made in small-batch distillations with varietal honeys, and sells for $47-$52 for a 750 milliliter bottle. There are several kinds — all 100 percent honey, but some aged in bourbon barrels. DeSano says it’s fine to drink his somel either neat or over ice, and he provides cocktail recipes at his website, domeloz.com.
Domeloz is sold at many restaurants and bars around Madison, including the Willy Street Co-op, where his love affair with bees began. “This is a genuine local spirit,” says DeSano. “It’s made right here in Dane County from Wisconsin honey. And it supports sustainable environmental practices. You can’t get better than that.”
