I imagine you want to make a Bee’s Knees, Gold Rush, or Honey Rose cocktail and want the best recipe for honey syrup. You’ve come to the right place.
Honey syrup has become a popular ingredient in modern and culinary-style cocktails. It’s relatively easy to make, and you’ll be learning how in this article.
Instead of using regular syrup in your cocktail, the honey syrup will give you the extra sweetness and excitement you need. However, it’s important you get it right because honey syrup can make or break your cocktail, depending on how you make it.
If you’ve tried adding raw honey to a cocktail, you’d know that honey and cold water aren’t best friends. On touching cold water or ice, honey clumps and turns amber. So you have to make honey syrup if you want to make honey cocktails.
How do you make honey syrup for cocktails?
Mix honey and hot water in a ratio of 3:1, stir and pour your finished honey syrup into a bottle or jar. Voila.
Stick around as I teach you how to make a honey syrup to enjoy with your cocktails and some honey syrup cocktail recipes you should try.
How To Make Honey Syrup
Here are the steps you can follow to make honey syrup at home.
Things You’ll Need
- Honey (as much as you need)
- Hot water (not boiling water)
- Stirring spoon
- Measuring cup (optional)
- Storage bottle or jar
Step 1: Pour Honey Into a Cup
Although any type of honey will work for this recipe, the honey syrup will reflect the honey you use, so you should use great-tasting organic honey.
You will be combining honey and water in a ratio of 3:1, so add 3 times more honey than water. Why are you doing this? You don’t want the honey to lose its taste. Some people combine in 2:1 or even in the same amount, but different strokes for different folks.
Adding 3 times more honey helps you reduce honey’s viscosity without losing the great taste. You get almost the same taste as your original honey, but liquid honey that you can use for cocktails.
If you have a measuring cup, measure your honey and then pour it into your mixing cup or bowl.
Step 2: Add Hot Water
Measure 1/3 of the amount of honey you poured and add it to the mixing bowl. You’re using hot water because it melts honey and makes it fluid enough to mix.
Besides, did you know that raw honey has healthy bacteria that give it its antimicrobial properties? Using boiling water can kill these healthy bacteria, so hot water will do.
Step 3: Mix
Using a bar mixing spoon or any other spoon you can find if you don’t have one, start to stir your honey syrup. Honey doesn’t mix easily with water, so you’ll have to stir for a while.
Step 4: Pour Into a Bottle or Jar and Store
After mixing evenly, pour your finished honey syrup into your storage bottle or jar. It can last for months in the freezer, and you’ll be drinking honey cocktails for a long time.
Not only can you make the honey syrup by adding hot water, but you can also revitalize hardened honey with hot water. Some people mix the honey and water in a small pot on a stove, then stir in low heat until it’s even. However you choose to do it, making honey syrup is easy, fun, and delicious.
Honey Cocktails You Should Try
Honey cocktails are sweeter than cocktails without, but this doesn’t mean they’re sugary. Honey doesn’t raise blood sugar levels as quickly as sugar, but it still does.
However, if you love the sugar in honey and honey flavor, here are some cocktails you can try.
Bee’s Knees Cocktail
To make this cocktail, you need honey syrup, gin, lemon juice, and a lemon twist for garnish. The Bee’s Knees cocktail literally looks like a ray of sunshine because the colors of honey and lemon aren’t that far apart from each other.
It’s a cocktail you can drink during the summer on the beach or at a party. To make the cocktail, get your cocktail shaker and fill it with ice.
Add 1/2 ounce of honey syrup, 1 ounce of lemon juice, and 2 ounces of dry gin to your ice, fasten the lid and shake until your cocktail is cold. Pour the drink into a martini glass, twist the lemon peel over the cocktail to get all the oils, and put it in the drink. Your cocktail is ready to drink.
Gold Rush Cocktail
The gold rush is another amazing cocktail you can make with honey syrup. It uses all the ingredients and steps in the bee’s knees cocktail but with bourbon instead of gin.
Whiskey has more alcohol, so you should expect this cocktail to have a strong, deep taste.
Tequila Honey Bee
This is another variation of the bee’s knees cocktail but with a slight difference. Yes, you guessed right, you’re going to use tequila as the base instead of gin or bourbon.
You can add a lemon twist or Angostura bitters to garnish and enjoy. It’s not bitter or sweet, but any tequila aficionado will love to try it.
Honey Rose Old Fashioned
To make this, combine the rose-honey simple syrup with bourbon and apple bitters in a mixing cup with ice. Stir until it’s chilled and strain into a drinking glass. Afterward, garnish with rose buds or orange rose. Here’s a more extensive description of this recipe.
Final Thoughts
Did you know that archaeologists found 3000-year-old honey while excavating Egyptian tombs, and they were still edible?
Honey lasts long, longer than most foods, so if you’re worried about your honey syrup going bad, now you know. Make as much as you want and store it well, and you may be drinking honey cocktails for 3000 years.
