About This Recipe
The Bee's Knees brings gin, lemon and honey together in a short shaken cocktail. This is a lemon-only version, strained into a chilled glass without serving ice. Warm the honey with a little water first, then cool the syrup so it mixes easily with the citrus and gin.
Recipe
Bee's Knees Honey Gin Cocktail
Shake gin, fresh lemon and a small weighed honey syrup, then strain into a chilled glass. This lemon-only Bee's Knees includes spirit energy.
6Ingredients
Yield: 1 servings
- 55.6 g unflavored 80-proof gin (2 US fl oz; USDA standard portion)
- 22 g fresh lemon juice
- 21 g honey
- 10.5 g water for syrup
- 100 g water, frozen into shaking ice
- 1 g lemon peel, without attached flesh
Ingredient amounts scale; instructions show the original batch. Cooking times and pan sizes may need adjustment. Season to taste. Honey grams use US measures at 20°C and 17.5% moisture, a density estimate; weigh your honey for precision.
Instructions
- 1Make and cool the syrupWarm the honey and measured 10.5 g water in a small heatproof cup set in warm water. Stir for about 1 minute until dissolved, then let cool for about 6 minutes. Chill the serving glass while the syrup cools.
- 2Shake the cocktailAdd the gin, fresh lemon juice and all the syrup to a cocktail shaker, scraping the cup well. Add the ice and shake hard for about 15 seconds, until the outside feels cold.
- 3Strain and garnishStrain through the shaker into the chilled glass, leaving the ice behind. Twist the measured lemon peel over the surface and add it as a garnish. Serve one drink without additional ice. The 12-minute total includes syrup cooling; allow longer if it is still warm.
Estimated nutrition per serving
197.59 calories · 0.06 g fat · 18.98 g carbohydrate · 0.16 g protein · 6.1 mg sodium
Serving: 1 of 1 servings
Calculated from ingredient weights and USDA FoodData Central: 174815, 167747, 169640, 173647, 167749. Estimates use ingredient input weights; actual portions, brands and cooking losses vary. Omitted nutrient values are unavailable, not zero.
A Lemon-Only Bee's Knees
The ingredients here are gin, fresh lemon and honey syrup, with lemon peel for garnish. Beefeater's mixing instruction calls for a hard shake with ice. This is a lemon-only version with its own weighed syrup balance, and the gin proof used in the estimate is stated explicitly.
Some named versions include other citrus. No orange juice or liqueur is part of this formula. The honey supplies the sweetener; there is no granulated sugar syrup alongside it.
Flavor intensity uses an editorial culinary scale: 1 is mild and 5 is bold. These are tasting suggestions, not laboratory measurements.
Sources: UC Agriculture and Natural Resources: cooking with honey; USDA FoodData Central: Alcoholic beverage, distilled, all (gin, rum, vodka, whiskey) 80 proof; Beefeater: shaking a lemon-only Bee's Knees.
1 = mild, 5 = bold. Editorial pairing guidance, not laboratory measurements; jars vary.
- Clover
- Gin and fresh lemon
- Wildflower
- A floral gin sour
- Orange blossom
- Gin botanicals and citrus
Get the Honey Buyer's Cheat Sheet (free PDF)
16 varieties on one page — color, flavor, best use and what a fair price looks like — from the 304 honeys we track.
Dissolve the Honey before Chilling
The small syrup batch uses 21 g honey and 10.5 g water. Warm it only until smooth, then cool before shaking. All of the syrup belongs to one cocktail, so scrape it from the cup rather than leaving a sticky layer behind.
Clover gives a quiet honey note beside gin botanicals. Wildflower is stronger, while orange blossom gives a floral citrus direction without adding orange juice. Use honey you like in a cold drink.
Strain into a Chilled Glass
Shake with ice, then leave that ice in the shaker. The drink is served up, with the measured lemon peel as its garnish. It has no egg white and does not need a thick foam cap. The final volume varies with ice melt.
For a whiskey-and-lemon counterpart over fresh ice, try the honey whiskey sour. The honey lemonade is a separate nonalcoholic recipe with a larger water proportion.
What the Estimate Includes
The spirit reference is generic 80-proof distilled alcohol, with the official energy value retained. The direct USDA portion is 27.8 g per US fl oz, giving 55.6 g for the 2 US fl oz of gin in this recipe. It is not a brand-specific laboratory measurement.
The estimate also includes all the syrup, fresh lemon juice and measured peel. It does not promise an exact finished alcohol percentage after shaking. Culinary honey ginger tea offers a warm drink without gin.
Choosing the Honey
Use Clover Honey or Wildflower Honey for the flavor described in this recipe. See our honey selection guide for other culinary choices.
