Easy Honey Syrup
Honey thinned with warm water into a pourable cocktail sweetener — the essential ingredient for Bee's Knees, Gold Rush, and Penicillin cocktails.
Raw honey is one of the most flavorful sweeteners in the bar, but it refuses to dissolve in cold drinks — drop it into a shaking tin and it sinks to the bottom in sticky clumps. Honey syrup solves this entirely by pre-dissolving honey in warm water, producing a pourable liquid that measures cleanly and blends into any cocktail. Three foundational drinks depend on it: the Prohibition-era Bee's Knees tied to socialite Margaret Brown and the Ritz Paris, the modern Gold Rush created in 2001 at New York's Milk and Honey, and the Scotch-based Penicillin which uses a ginger-honey variation.
- 1 cuphoney(raw or wildflower for best flavor)
- 1 cupwater(warm, filtered)
- 1Pour the water into a small saucepan and warm it over low heat just until comfortably hot to the touch — do not let it boil, which damages honey's delicate aromatic compounds.
- 2Remove the pan from heat and stir in the honey with a whisk or wooden spoon.
- 3Continue stirring for one to two minutes until the honey fully dissolves into a smooth, uniform liquid with no visible streaks at the bottom.
- 4Let the syrup cool to room temperature in the pan, which takes about fifteen minutes.
- 5Transfer to a clean glass bottle or mason jar using a funnel, then seal and refrigerate until needed.
- 6When using in cocktails, measure honey syrup as a direct substitute for simple syrup — use three-quarters of an ounce to balance a standard one-ounce pour of lemon juice in a Bee's Knees or Gold Rush.
Store in an airtight glass container in the refrigerator for up to one month. The syrup should stay clear with a consistent golden color; discard if any fermentation bubbles, sour aroma, or cloudiness develops. For longer storage, add a teaspoon of neutral vodka or overproof rum to the cooled syrup, which extends shelf life to about two months without noticeably affecting flavor. Keep refrigerated.
Never boil the water because temperatures above about ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit destroy honey's natural enzymes and delicate floral notes, leaving a syrup that tastes flatter than it should. Use raw or lightly filtered honey from a local beekeeper when possible — supermarket clover honey works but yields a noticeably less interesting final syrup. Different honey varieties produce dramatically different syrups: orange blossom adds a citrus undertone, buckwheat turns the syrup dark and molasses-like, and lavender honey lends a subtle floral note. For richer syrup that lasts longer and uses slightly less product per cocktail, shift to a two-to-one or three-to-one honey-to-water ratio, scaling the amount used in each cocktail accordingly. Warm the syrup briefly in the microwave before using if it has thickened in the refrigerator, because cold honey syrup can still clump when it hits cold cocktail ingredients.
The Bee's Knees cocktail, built around gin, lemon, and honey, originated in the late 1920s — cocktail historian Jared Brown uncovered an April 22, 1929 Brooklyn Standard Union article naming American socialite Margaret Brown, the Titanic survivor known as the Unsinkable Molly Brown, as its creator during her time in Paris, while a separate 1929 Paris cocktail book credits Frank Meier, head bartender at the Ritz Hotel. The Gold Rush, the modern cousin of the Bee's Knees built with bourbon instead of gin, was created in 2001 at Sasha Petraske's influential Milk and Honey bar in New York City, conceived by bartender T.J. Siegel. The Penicillin, developed around the same era by Sam Ross, uses a ginger-honey variation of the syrup. Across these three drinks and their offspring — Honey Bee, Honeysuckle, Airmail — honey syrup has become a foundational modern bar ingredient.
For the ginger-honey syrup used in the Penicillin, simmer one hundred grams of thinly sliced fresh ginger in one cup of water for five minutes, let it steep for twelve hours, then strain and combine the ginger water with one cup of honey using the standard method. Chamomile honey syrup for Bee's Knees variations comes from steeping two chamomile tea bags in the warm water for five minutes before adding the honey. A smoked honey syrup briefly toasts the honey in a dry pan before dissolving, creating a caramelized depth suited to mezcal and smoky scotch cocktails. For a spiced version, infuse the warm water with a split vanilla bean, two cracked cardamom pods, and a cinnamon stick for ten minutes before straining and adding honey. A rich three-to-one version made with three parts honey to one part water is the Difford's Guide standard for batched cocktails and delivers more complex honey flavor per ounce used.
Contains honey. Unsafe for infants under twelve months due to botulism risk from raw honey; adult consumption is safe. Not suitable for strict vegan diets. Naturally gluten-free.