Bee's Knees
ClassicIBA OfficialGin, lemon, and a spoonful of honey.
Bright, floral, and gently sweet. Fresh lemon leads with a clean tartness, honey syrup rounds it with a soft floral sweetness that ordinary sugar can't match, and gin's botanicals thread through it all. Smooth, mellow, and easy — the friendliest of the gin sours.
Ingredients
- 2 oz Gin
- 0.75 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
- 0.75 oz Honey Syrup
- Lemon twist · optional garnish
Method
- 1
Add the gin, lemon juice, and honey syrup to a shaker with ice.
- 2
Shake until well-chilled.
- 3
Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
- 4
Express a lemon twist over the top and drop it in.
The Story
The Bee's Knees is a child of Prohibition, when bathtub gin was rough enough to need disguising — and honey and lemon did the job while sounding like a doctor's tonic. The name was 1920s slang for "the best," and the drink lived up to it: a honeyed gin sour that hid its bootleg origins behind genuine charm. With good gin and real honey syrup, it's a small masterpiece of balance.
Recipe card
The whole recipe in one shareable image.
