Honey syrup
Prep time:
Honey let down with hot water so it can be measured and will mix when cold. It is what sweetens the Bee’s Knees, the Gold Rush and the Penicillin, and each of them asks for a different ratio.
Ingredients
- 100 ml honey
- 50 ml hot water, not boiling
Preparation
- Heat the water without letting it boil.
- Pour it over the honey and stir until there are no streaks left at the bottom.
- Let it cool and store it in the fridge in a closed jar.
Bartender’s notes
Which ratio should I use?
It depends on the cocktail, and this recipe collection uses all three. 1:1 is the lightest and mixes in most easily. 2:1, the one here, is the standard and the one in the Bee’s Knees. And 3:1, thick and tasting more of honey, is the Gold Rush one. If you only make one, 2:1 covers everything: let it down with a few drops of water when a recipe wants a lighter one.
And the one for a Penicillin?
It is this same syrup with ginger. Add a piece of peeled, grated fresh ginger to the hot water — about two centimetres per 100 ml — let it steep for ten minutes, strain, and only then mix it with the honey. It should bite: that is half the drink.
How long does it keep?
In the fridge and tightly closed, about two weeks; a little longer for 3:1, which has less water. If it crystallises, a few seconds in a warm water bath brings it back.
Related recipes
Bee’s Knees
Gin, lemon and honey. The honey does not go in neat — it sinks and never integrates — but as a syrup, and that is the whole technique.
View recipe →
Gold Rush
A Whiskey Sour with the sugar and the egg white taken out and honey put in. It was born in New York in 2001 and has earned its place: with three ingredients it tastes fuller than the original does with five.
View recipe →
Penicillin
A modern "cold toddy" created in 2005. Comforting, medicinal and with a surprising smoky finish. The honey and ginger syrup is its soul.
View recipe →