The story of Rhododendrons, how they came to The Masters, and why people pay $166/lb for their honey.

Rhododendron indica 'Mrs. G. G. Gerbing.’

In 1676, Thomas and Ann Drayton had a house and small formal garden built near the Ashley River, South Carolina. Failing to produce a lasting male heir, Thomas bequeathed the property to his two grandsons, through daughter Sarah Daniel Drayton (Grimke), on the condition they be willing to take on the surname Drayton. Both obligingly conceded, but the eldest died abruptly leaving the whole of the 1875-acre plantation to Reverend John Grimke (now, -Drayton).

Magnolia Plantation House, South Carolina

Rev. Drayton married Julia Ewing of Philadelphia, moved from his Episcopalian seminary in New York, and immediately took interest in the formal garden, where he devoted himself entirely to creating an “earthly paradise in which my dear Julia may forever forget Philadelphia.” He focused his efforts on softening formality and embracing the natural breeziness of contemporary English gardens. Around 1830, he introduced the first azaleas to America, and he was among the first to utilize Camellia japonica in an outdoor setting, creating something at once dazzlingly new and steadfastly enduring. Called Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, or more simply Magnolia, the plantation and gardens opened to the public in 1871, following the American Civil War, and is one of the oldest public gardens in America. Fifteen Drayton generations later, it remains highly prized by the community. It is worthy to consider that a great deal of the gardens, if not all, were built by unacknowledged enslaved Africans rather than by Grimke himself. His aunts, Sarah and Angelina Emily Grimke, however, were appalled by the institution of slavery, moved north out of South Carolina to the free state of Pennsylvania and became, in the words of Gerda Lerner: “the only notable examples of white Southern women abolitionists.” That being said, Rev. Grimke-Drayton’s vision has done much to imprint Azaleas into the fabric of Southern tradition.

Azaleas at the 79th Masters Tournament held at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.

Rhododendrons (from rhodon - 'rose ', and dendron -'tree') and Azaleas (from azaleos - ‘dry’, referring to their preference for well drained soil) are spring blooming flowering shrubs in the aptly named genus Rhododendron. Shade tolerant and acid loving, they quickly became the flower of the south after Grimke’s introduction. Today they are celebrated as the quintessential motif for The Masters golf tournament, held in Augusta Georgia each year, just as the shrubs are bursting into show. So essential are they to the experience that the signature cocktail is named for them: The Azalea. Paradoxically, it is made from lemon juice, pineapple, vodka, and grenadine; conspicuously devoid of spring blooming flowering shrubs. This is likely because members of this genus are highly toxic. They contain grayanotoxins (named for 19th century American botanist Asa Gray) in both leaves and nectar, which act by interfering with sodium channels in the cell membrane of neurons. Azaleas and rhododendrons were once so infamously noxious that to receive a bouquet in a black vase was considered a death threat.

Despite their inherent rancor, azaleas have found their way into a handful of consumables. A traditional alcoholic beverage made from rice wine and azalea blossoms, called dugyeonju (literally "azalea wine"), is fermented in Korea, as are azalea cakes where the flowers are kneaded into the dough of rice flour. The wine is reportedly subtle and sweet with light floral notes and bears no particular increased risk of mortality.

In some very specific parts of Turkey, bees are deliberately fed on azaleas and rhododendrons, nestled in splendorous homogeneity along the humid mountainous slopes surrounding the Black sea, to make ‘mad honey’. Natively called deli bal, it is the most expensive honey in the world at $166 per pound. It is sweet and delicious but causes a sharp burning sensation in the throat, as well as light-headedness and occasional hallucinations. Consume too much and you’ll very soon wish you hadn’t; grayanotoxins induce vomiting, diarrhea, loss of consciousness, and seizures. Mad honey, it is thought, helped King Mithridates and his Persian army defeat the Romans at Trabzon, near the Black Sea, in 67 C.E. when industrious soldiers left pots of local honey for the Roman troops to find in their wake. “They ate the honey, became disoriented and couldn’t fight. The Persian army returned and killed over 1,000 Roman troops with few losses of their own,” according to Texas A&M University Professor of Anthropology Vaughn Bryant.

Rhododendrons and Azaleas are members of the heath (Ericaceae) family, the same as blueberries and pieris (Lily of the valley shrub), all of which prefer acidic soil. Azaleas comprise much of the former Rhododendron subdivisions Pentathera (deciduous) and Tsutsusi (evergreen) and are characterized by the lack of scales on the underside of the generally thin, soft, and pointed leaves. They typically have terminal blooms (one flower per stem) and can be distinguished from the Rhododendron by the number of stamens, five versus the Rhod’s ten.