Bee's Knees
Honey, citrus and gin.
A gin sour sweetened with honey instead of sugar, brightened by lemon and orange. Soft and luminous, it shows how well honey rounds off the botanical edge of gin.
- IBA · New Era
- Aperitif
- Shaken
- Glass
- Cocktail glass
- Method
- Shaken
- Strength
- Medium
- Time
- 3 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Ice
- No ice
Ingredients
Measures for 1 serving
-
Honey syrup
2 tsp
-
Lemon juice
22.5 ml
-
Orange juice
22.5 ml
-
Gin
52.5 ml
Garnish
- Lemon twist (optional)
Proportions
How to make
- Chill a cocktail glass.
- Pour the honey syrup into the shaker.
- Add the lemon juice.
- Add the orange juice.
- Stir until the honey dissolves.
- Add the gin.
- Fill the shaker with ice.
- Shake hard.
- Strain into the chilled glass.
- Optionally garnish with a lemon or orange zest.
The story
Origins
ProbableA plausible account, without definitive proof.
For years the Bee's Knees was told as an American Prohibition drink, with honey and lemon masking bootleg gin, but there is no evidence for it. The first printed recipe appears in Paris in 1929, in Cocktails de Paris, credited to Frank Meier, head bartender at the Ritz: gin, lemon and honey. The same year a Brooklyn newspaper instead credited the invention to Margaret Brown, the 'Unsinkable Molly Brown' who survived the Titanic and lived between Denver and Paris. Meier reprinted the recipe in his 1936 book. The orange juice in the IBA version echoes a suggestion made by David Embury in 1948.
Taste profile
- Citrus
- 4 out of 5
- Sweet
- 3 out of 5
- Sour
- 3 out of 5
- Herbal
- 2 out of 5