Bees Knees
Gin, lemon and honey. A Prohibition-era sour that was invented to hide bad gin and turns out to be the best thing you can do with good gin.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Chill a coupe.
Add the gin, lemon juice and honey syrup to a shaker.
Fill with ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into the chilled coupe and garnish with a lemon twist.
A thoughtful finish
- Make honey syrup rather than spooning honey into the shaker. Cold honey seizes on contact with ice and sinks to the bottom in a lump; a three-to-one syrup pours and mixes cleanly.
- The honey is a flavour, not just a sweetener, so a characterful one — orange blossom, wildflower, a dark forest honey — changes the drink noticeably. Avoid heavily processed squeeze-bottle honey.
- If the drink tastes thin, the fix is a richer syrup, not more of it. Two-to-one honey to water gives more body at the same sweetness.
Common mistakes
- Adding raw honey directly. It will not dissolve and the drink comes out sour and sticky at the same time.
- Over-sweetening. Honey tastes sweeter than sugar; half an ounce of syrup is plenty against three-quarters of lemon.
- Using a strongly flavoured gin without tasting first. A heavily herbal or savoury gin can fight the honey.
A few good questions.
What does a Bee's Knees taste like?
A bright gin sour with the round, floral sweetness of honey in place of sugar. It is softer than a Gimlet and more fragrant than a plain gin sour.
Can I use lime instead of lemon?
Yes, and it is a good drink, but lemon is the classic and pairs better with honey.
What ratio of honey to water for the syrup?
Three parts honey to one part warm water is standard; two to one makes a richer syrup if you want more body. Stir until clear and keep it in the fridge for a month.
What is a Gold Rush?
The same drink on bourbon — honey syrup, lemon and whiskey, served on the rocks. It was created at Milk & Honey in New York around 2000.
Variations
- Gold Rush — Bourbon, lemon and honey on the rocks.
- Gimlet — Gin and lime with sugar in place of honey.
- Business — The same drink with lime instead of lemon.
- Penicillin — Scotch, honey, lemon and ginger.
Where it comes from
c. 1920s · Paris or the United States · Frank Meier (attributed) · Ritz Hotel, Paris
Contested. More than one origin is claimed for this drink. We show the competing accounts rather than pick one.
‘The bee’s knees’ was 1920s slang for the height of excellence, and the drink appears in the Prohibition era on both sides of the Atlantic. The strongest claim belongs to Frank Meier, the Austrian-born head bartender of the Ritz in Paris, whose 1936 book The Artistry of Mixing Drinks prints it; some writers credit it to him outright. An American newspaper story of 1929 attributes it instead to Margaret Brown — the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic survivor — which is colourful and unverified. The honey-and-lemon formula is usually explained as a way of masking the harshness of bathtub gin, which is plausible and, like most Prohibition origin stories, undocumented.
Sources
- Frank Meier, The Artistry of Mixing Drinks, 1936 (book)
- Robert Simonson, A Proper Drink, 2016 (book)
- David Wondrich, Imbibe!, 2015 (book)
Strength. About 1.47 US standard drinks at an estimated 21.7% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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