The Bee’s Knees is a simple cocktail recipe with just a few easily sourced ingredients, gin, Chardonnay, honey, and lavender.
The Bee’s Knee’s, meaning the best, it has a delightful floral sweet taste from the natural lavender and honey tones that gives it a nectar like appeal.
Although the recipe uses honey, this can be substituted for a keto simple syrup if on a low carb or keto diet.
I used Bombay Sapphire gin and a Hardy’s Stamp Chardonnay Semillon, but you can use whichever brands you have available.
Switching the wine is another idea to change the flavours and personalise this recipe. Pinot Grigio, a sparkling Chardonnay, or a Prosecco would be a perfect match for these gentle floral flavours in this cocktail. A cocktail that simply tastes like an alcoholic nectar.
Prohibition and Bees Knees
The Gin Sour was a popular classic cocktail and the crude “Bathtub” gin often used in days of prohibition would have needed a little extra something to lend the taste of the harsh gin a little more smoothness on the tongue.
The Bee’s Knees phrase came from a 1920’s trend, meaning it’s the absolute top notch. Adding a little more sweetness and some floral notes, a dry cocktail can transform into a completely different cocktail altogether.
These days the quality gin’s available in so many stores are hard to decide on, the range of flavours and botanicals used make gin a wonderful ingredient for a more modern-day cocktail recipe because we can alter the style with a different gin each time such as floral gins for instance.
I like to use an unflavoured gin for the Lavender Bees Knees, gin cocktail so that the gentle honey and lavender notes come through when tasting. Bombay Sapphire gin made a great choice, and it is such a quality gin to make the base flavour.
Benefits of Lavender
People have been using lavender in their drinks and potpourri and infused into candle wax for many years, it is known to have relaxing and calming benefits from the aroma alone or from being infused into teas.
Lavender or (Lavandula angustifolia) plant makes a lovely tea when the purple heads of the lavender are infused with hot water to make a gentle tea.
Aromatherapy using lavender extract has, through a variety of studies, shown to have destressing properties.
It is unclear whether the lavender tea aroma is the main calming and mood boosting element or if it derives from ingestion, but non the less is beneficial in calming and reducing stress levels, especially when the aroma and tea is used regularly it has shown to reduce fatigue and depression levels.
Coupe glasses
The history of the coupe glass is probably not as you would have expected unless you had previous knowledge. Pronounced ‘ko͞op,’ the glass was designed by a Benedictine monk in England during the sixteenth century.
The glass is generally a wide but shallow bowl-shaped glass with a stem. There was a rumour that the coupe glass was designed from Marie Antoinette’s left breast, but this has since been discounted because it is a proven fact that this shape of glass had been used since a much earlier date in history than her lifespan, Marie Antoinette lived between 1755 – 1793 and the coupe glass originates from 1663.
She did however have drinking vessels made for drinking to her health that were modelled to her breast shape and were for drinking milk from called a jattes teton.
The coupe glass was very trendy during the 1920’s and you may have noticed them in some of the classic films depicting that era, especially that iconic shot with the charming Leonardo De Caprio holding up his coupe glass to the camera.
The Recipe
You will need:
Have two coupe glasses ready to pour the cocktail into and a sieve to catch the loose lavender bits.
Conclusion and tips
A very easy gin cocktail recipe with some additional adaptations to alter to your own style and tastes, the more keto friendly version is a great way to enjoy this cocktail while staying away from the sugars usually associated with the recipe.
If you like the lemon version, you might also like the White Lady Gin Cocktail too. I have tried experimenting with a sprig of rosemary in the cocktail or in my gin and tonic, both lavender and rosemary grow in my garden and so I had both readily at hand, the rosemary is delicious with gin cocktails or with the gin and tonic over ice.
I hope you enjoy this delightful floral cocktail and feel like it’s the Bees Knees as I do, too once you have sampled it.