Bee’s Knees —equal parts gin, lemon juice, and honey—is a cocktail that the great mid-century cocktail authority David A. Embury denounced as a “pernicious recipe.” It was, he explained, one of those Prohibition drinks, like the Alexander and the Orange Blossom, designed to cover up “unutterably vile” bootleg liquor (in fact, it does first appear in print during Prohibition, ascribed to socialite Margaret “The Unsinkable Molly” Brown). This explains the use of “sweetened, highly flavored, and otherwise emollient and anti-emetic ingredients” such as honey. If you must have one, Embury recommends a dry version: eight parts gin and two parts lemon juice to one part honey; “Cocktail Bill” Boothby’s version, with three parts gin to one part each honey, lemon juice, and orange juice, is also an improvement. Make it with rum instead of gin and add champagne and you get an Air Mail Cocktail; or, use maraschino liqueur instead of honey to make an Aviation. See Air Mail and Aviation Cocktail.
Recipe: Shake 45 ml gin, 22 ½ ml lemon juice, and 7 ½ ml honey over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
“Bars in Paris for ‘Madame’ Close Doors to Mere Male,” Brooklyn NY Standard Union, April 23, 1929, p. 23.
Embury, David A., The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, 2nd ed., Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1952.
By: Eric Felten