A sticky scoop: Mike’s Hot Honey is made by an ARHS grad!

Mike Kurtz is not just the face and founder of the nationally renowned honey brand Mike’s Hot Honey, but he is also an ARHS grad (class of 2000!) who was born and raised in the area.

Kurtz went to Pelham Elementary School, and he vividly remembers a unit in school where he “grew monarch butterflies from caterpillars and raised chicks in an incubator.” 

He has memories of the cafeteria food, too. “One of my favorite parts of lunch was when they’d serve the chocolate cake with vanilla icing,” said Kurtz. 

Kurtz went on to ARMS (which was then referred to as “junior high”), followed by ARHS. During his time at the high school, he wrote for the school newspaper, The Graphic, while taking a journalism class taught by Sara Barber-Just (the same newspaper I write for today). After graduating, he took a gap year before going to college.

During that year, he saved up money while working as a delivery driver and used it to fund a road trip to Los Angeles, CA, in search of new jobs. “But once we got there, we decided to leave the car on the side of the road and we got one-way tickets to Honolulu, Hawaii,” said Kurtz. “We stayed there for a year working.”

After a year in Hawaii, they flew back to LA, where they found their car “still sitting in the same place on the side of the road.” Kurtz said that after replacing the battery, they made their way back to Amherst.

But he was on the move; Kurtz then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his freshman year of college. “When I realized that tuition was much cheaper in-state than out-of-state for virtually the same education level, I came back to Amherst for college,” said Kurtz. He then attended UMass Amherst for his sophomore, junior, and senior years of college, where he triple-majored in Portuguese, African-American Studies, and Ethnomusicology. 

During his junior year in college, he also studied abroad in Brazil, where he first tasted hot honey. 

“One night when I was going out for pizza, I noticed jars of honey with hot chilies in them. I put it on the pizza and realized that it was an otherworldly combination,” said Kurtz. He was inspired.

During his senior year, he started making his own hot honey in his college apartment. “I made hot honey for about six years before I actually started to consider selling it,” said Kurtz. 

Kurtz truly likes honey and spicy food, but he thinks honey is especially interesting because it “takes on the flavor of wherever the bees are.” But his favorite food is Vietnamese food. “My happiest meal is staring down a bowl of pho,” he said. He is also a big fan of pizza.

After graduating from college in 2005, he got a call from a record label in New York where he had previously applied, and they said that he had landed a job as a record salesman. He then worked in New York for a bit, but he realized that he didn’t want to be in record sales forever. Eventually, his passion for pizza led him to Paulie Gee’s pizzeria in Brooklyn.

He started an apprenticeship at Paulie Gee’s, where they eventually began putting his honey on top of the pizza made there. “I realized that my honey was going to be successful basically from the start, because everyone who tried it said they thought it was amazing,” said Kurtz. 

He decided to turn it into a business, noting “the entrepreneurial spirit found me before I found it,” said Kurtz. 

At first, his business was a one-man show, with him carrying all the responsibilities from pricing to shipping the bottles out. “[But] I now have a team of about 30 people, and they are some of the best, most talented people I have ever met,” he said. “I’m so grateful to have them working alongside me.”

Kurtz still lives in Brooklyn and hopes to continue his thriving business for many years to come. Today, he sources his chili peppers from Brazil and his honey from the U.S., Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

Mike’s Hot Honey has collaborated with many other famous brands, including KFC, Blue Diamond Almonds, Arizona Tea, UTZ, 7-Eleven, and Cinemark.

He also recently collaborated on a new pie at the famous Frank Pepe Pizzeria in New Haven—called the Afterburner—a Doppio pepperoni pie drizzled with Mike’s Hot Honey. It is safe to say that Mike’s Hot Honey has taken the U.S. by storm. 

Kurtz hopes for the future of his business that the values stay the same, and that his honey can continue to bring people together over food, even after he’s gone. He believes in sustainable agriculture and beekeeping, bringing up a quote often printed on bumper stickers that reads: “No bees, no farms, no food.”

He doesn’t just care about the earth; he cares about the corner of it where he grew up. Kurtz wrapped up by saying that while he has done interviews with “big places such as the New York Times, this interview really takes the cake because it’s one where I can get nostalgic and go back to the place where I grew up.” 

As a nod to his alma mater, Mike’s Hot Honey features the ARHS school colors—maroon and white—its logo, bottles, shirts, and more.