A couple of weeks ago, Anna from Braising Hell sent me two links to summer cocktails she thought I’d like. The Basil Vodka Gimlet sounded right up my alley, but I was more skeptical about her second cocktail, the Bee’s Knees, which contained gin, honey syrup,* and lemon juice. I wrinkled my nose and thought, Ew. Gin. I hate gin.
Then I went to DC and the Magic Gin Cocktail happened and I realized that I had just been waiting to find my gin soulmate, aka Hendrick’s gin. So I dug up the recipe Anna sent me and tried it out.
Home run! The combination of the herbal-cucumber Hendrick’s, the honey, and the lemon juice produces a drink you’ll be dying to sip on your back porch (even if, like me, you don’t have a back porch).
I don’t want to steal Google traffic from the blog that originally posted the recipe, the lovely Not Without Salt, so if you’re interested in making your own Bee’s Knees, you’ll find the recipe here! (You’ll also find an ode to Hendrick’s gin and much better photography than you’ll get on my blog.) If you’re not a fan of sweet cocktails, like me, don’t fear the seemingly high amount of honey syrup in the Not Without Salt recipe. It’s just right. And if you do like sweet cocktails you can easily boost the amount of honey syrup to your liking.
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* Honey syrup is just a simple syrup made with honey instead of sugar — i.e. 1 part honey, 1 part water, heat gently until honey is dissolved.
Yay! I love this drink so much and your approval is very validating, as you are the drink lady. :) I agree that it’s really refreshing and not too sweet and we JUST finished our bottle of gin so I think I now have an excuse to buy some Hendrick’s. Sweet.
i love me some gin. maybe i’ll give this a shot.
@Anna & liz — What brand of gin do you normally buy? I’ve been wondering if my previous antipathy to gin wasn’t about the gin but more about tonic water (I loathe G&Ts, which was the only gin cocktail I’d tried). I’m kind of in love with Hendrick’s but it would be worth knowing if I like other kinds of gin too!