A gin sour sweetened with honey rather than sugar, the Bee's Knees sets juniper-forward spirit against bright lemon and lets a soft, floral honey note linger on the finish. An equal pour of orange juice rounds off the citrus edge, so it drinks fuller and gentler than a straight lemon sour, served up, ice-cold and silky from a hard shake.
Garnish: Lemon Peel
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Add honey syrup, lemon juice, and orange juice to a shaker and stir briefly so the honey dissolves into the juices.
add
Add the gin and fill the shaker with ice.
shake
Shake hard until well chilled and integrated.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe, served straight up.
garnish
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in (optional).
The name borrows a bit of 1920s slang for "the best," and the drink belongs to the Prohibition years, though who first mixed it remains uncertain. Frank Meier, the first head bartender at the Ritz Paris, marked it as his own invention in his 1936 book The Artistry of Mixing Drinks, while a 1929 news account handed the credit instead to the American socialite Margaret "Molly" Brown. Meier's version was a spare trio of gin, honey and lemon; the orange juice came with the IBA's standardized build, which files the drink among its New Era cocktails.