Does honey contain traces of alcohol?

Question

This question is similar to the case of bread, but I am more skeptical with honey because of its properties somewhat resemble to an alcohol (being acidic and tangy on tongue).

Relative source

I found this paper on ScienceDirect describes the apparent ethanol content of unspoiled honeys during storage. Some relevant text have been quoted as below.

[...] Ethanol is a honey fermentation product, together with carbon dioxide and several volatile and non-volatile acids (Marvin, Peterson, Fred & Wilson, 1931).

Ethanol content of honey can increase during fermentation, and this is normally related to moisture content (Fabian and Quinet, 1928, Lochhead, 1933 and Stephen, 1946) [...].

Based on my reading, the quoted text (especially in bold, applied by me), would suggest that ethanol may be found in honey prior to fermentation.

Generic source

Some time ago, this was asked on Yahoo Answers and it had few answers. However, even the "best answer" didn't have any citation to support the claim and "blurred" with chemistry facts.

Honey contains no alcohol [...]. It does is a chemical categorization sense though. Within organic chemistry alcohols are sometimes considered a hybrid of carbohydrates or visa versa [...].

The next closest result from googling is "mead" or "honey wine", produced by fermentating honey with water and such. But this produce does not describe any traces of alcohol occurring naturally in honey, that may be found prior to fermentation process.

Question details

Above all, is there any source that clarifies whether honey contain traces of alcohol or else?

• Here, I am referring to honey as in raw honey. Honey that is found in its original condition (in the beehives), prior to harvest, unpasteurized and unproceessed.

• Also, I am referring to alcohol as in ethanol, ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol. The kind of alcohol that is found in alcoholic beverages and in the rising bread dough, however occurs naturally.

Answer 1

The article author of the article that you linked to wrote an earlier article in 1994 where he measured the ethanol content of unspoiled honey.

This article of Journal of Agricultural Food Chem from 1994 gives the natural ethanol content of honey as 27.9mg/kg.

Answer 2

This answer has been written by taking an alternative approach, to clarify that traces of ethanol are indeed found in honey. Below are the minimal explanations to convince most skeptical users (or at least myself) regarding the claim.

Existing claim

According to the 1994 publication (same article but different source), the literatures (Borries', 1934; Duisberg, 1967) stated that "small quantities of ethanol" are found in unspoiled honey. One of the literatures, written in German (Borries', 1934), is available as abstract only.

The 1994 publication had been authored by mostly same group of authors, similar to the publication quoted by the question. This may lead to, although unlikely, the answer to be shadowed by doubt or being biased. Hence, clarification follows.

Alternative approach

The following three important points, shall be considered as basic knowledge before doing an in-depth reading of the publications, which have been quoted under "existing claim".

1. Sugar will help microorganism growth, and ethanol is the product of microorganism growth in a process called fermentation [1] (regardless of intentional or unintentional).

2. Honey is essentially sugar, mostly glucose and fructose, that makes about 85 percent of the solids in honey [2].

3. Saturated sugar [however] inhibits the growth of yeast and other fungal spores [3]. This property, known as hygroscopic, describes that sugar contain very little water in its natural state but it can easily absorb moisture from its surrounding [4][5].

Despite the hygroscopic environment, it is said that honey should still contain yeasts [2]. In fact, honey is found to be a good environment for certain kind of yeasts to live. The presence of the yeasts can be explored in this book, Biodiversity and Ecophysiology of Yeasts [6], as quoted below.

Osmophilic or sugar-tolerant yeasts are a problem in the honey industry [...] As a result, osmophilic yeasts readily ferment honey.

Clarification

In the introduction of the 2001 publication, which is quoted in the question, the osmophilic yeast in honey had been mentioned as below.

It is generally agreed that all honeys contain osmophilic (sugar-tolerant) yeasts in greater or lesser amounts, which could lead honey to ferment.

Therefore, the quoted publications in question and answer (or under "existing claim") are most likely unbiased and plausible based on the supporting explanation above.

Summary

Honey would contain very little amount of alcohol, or specifically ethanol, because of fermentation caused by sugar-tolerant yeast found in honey.

References

[1] Fermentation on Simple English Wikipedia.

[2] Honey Composition and Properties on Beesource Beekeeping.

[3] Why doesn't honey go bad on Quora, whose answer featured in The Huffington Post.

[4] The Science behind honeys eternal shelf life on Smithonian.

[5] Why honey is the only food that doesn't go bad on io9.com.

[6] Biodiversity and Ecophysiology of Yeasts, edited by Carlos Augusto Rosa, Gabor Peter, in page 380, accessible via preview on Google Books.

Disclaimer: This answer is not the best answer, due to lack of empirical evidence or figures that could point to "traces of alcohol in honey". This is just intended as generic explanations.