During Prohibition, a drinker’s challenge was not only to find (or make) booze… but to make it palatable. Because the good stuff was outlawed, and difficult to get hold of, many desperately thirsty folks turned to home-distilling. We often refer to these high-proof, rough-tasting, and often extremely toxic distillates from the 1920s as “bathtub gin.”

How did they do it? Here’s an extremely simplified, crash course in how booze is made, and I do NOT recommend you do this at home. Really. You could poison yourself.

ferment a raw material: Any fruit, vegetable or grain can be mixed with water and yeast, and left to sit for a week or two. When the yeast “eats” the sugar, it will start to bubble which means it has created alcohol.
That alcoholic, fermented liquid is essentially a wine (made from fruit / veg) or a beer (made from grain).
When that wine or beer is heated, it emits steam. Alcohol rises more quickly than water, so someone making hooch will capture that vapor. As it cools, it returns to a liquid form… and, voila, a high-proof, liquid alcohol concentrate is made.

Obviously, that alcohol should not be drunk as is. Once off the still, its blended with water, and often macerated (infused) with spices and citrus rinds or put in barrels to mellow and, if making gin, it will be soaked with juniper berries.

Back in the 1920s, home distillers usually did not have the right knowledge or equipment to make something tasty (and safe) enough to be sipped straight so it was often mixed with more enjoyable ingredients, resulting in some of the Prohibition-era cocktails we still enjoy today.

Enter the exquisitely simply BEES KNEES.

The original recipe is credited to Frank Meier, an Austrian-born bartender at the Hôtel Ritz Paris in the 1920s. It falls into the Sour category (2 parts spirit, 1 part citrus, 1 part sugar) and, in this case, plain sugar syrup is replaced with honey syrup.

It is a delightful little tipple just as it is, and it is also a canvas for personalization. For example, using different kinds of honey changes the drink as does using different kinds of gin. London Dry gin is more juniper-forward… drier, if you will. While modern gins that are infused with flowers, fruits and light on the juniper will make the Bees Knees taste like a skip through a summer garden.

The saying “Bees Knees” was popular in the early 20th century as a way of saying something is exceptionally good. Personally, I find it quite fitting for this lovely little drink.

Rose Garden Bees Knees

My twist on the Bees Knees is all about the flowers. Bees love them. We need bees to pollenate the plants that feed us. It’s a perfect full-circle cocktail!
1 ½ oz Hendrick’s gin (cucumber and rose notes!)
¾ oz fresh lemon juice
¾ oz lavender honey syrup
½ oz OM Vanilla & Rose Liqueur
Shake with ice, strain into a vintage cocktail glass. This deco glass from my collection, and dates back to the 1920s.

Photo and recipe by Natalie Bovis, The Liquid Muse.