Bourbon, fresh grapefruit and honey shake into a bright, pale-gold sour, the honey bridging the whiskey's caramel warmth and the citrus's tart, floral bite. Tart enough to wake the palate yet too gentle to jolt, it drinks lighter than a Whiskey Sour, with grapefruit's faint bitterness standing in for lemon's sharper edge.
Garnish: Grapefruit Peel
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Add bourbon, fresh grapefruit juice, and honey syrup to a shaker.
shake
Add ice and shake hard for about 15 seconds until well chilled.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
garnish
Express a grapefruit peel over the surface and drop it in, or discard.
The formula first shows up as the De Rigueur in Harry Craddock's 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, though Craddock compiled recipes rather than demonstrably inventing them. The Brown Derby name, borrowed from a hat-shaped Los Angeles diner, was attached in the 1933 book Hollywood Cocktails. Other accounts credit the Vendome Club, Billy Wilkerson's Sunset Boulevard venue, so the drink has no single documented inventor.