The Green Bee is a variation of a Bee’s Knees cocktail but with the extra addition of rosemary. If you love gin, honey, and herbal tones, you’ll love this riff.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!
I love a classic Bee’s Knees. It’s so easy to make (just 3 ingredients!) and really gives the gin a chance to shine. This fall, I’ve been on a big herbal kick. I’ve made my rosemary sage simple syrup three times now and have been using it in just about every cocktail recipe I think it could work in. There’s something so warming about use rich savory herbs like rosemary and sage in cocktails.
I knew that honey and rosemary worked together, so I made a honey rosemary simple syrup. And what better way to use a honey syrup than in a Bee’s Knees?
To make the honey rosemary syrup, add 1/4 cup of honey, 1/4 cup of water, and 2 sprigs of rosemary to a small saucepan. Heat until the honey is dissolved and turn off the heat. Allow the rosemary to steep in the syrup until it cools. Remove the rosemary and pour into a small lidded container. Store in the fridge.
As I mentioned earlier, simple classic cocktails like the Bee’s Knees give gins a real chance to shine. The limited ingredients won’t overshadow the unique taste of whatever gin you’re using. Choosing a more herbal gin in The Green Bee is a great call because of the addition of the rosemary. But pick what you like. I actually used a botanical rum in place of gin in the drink shown in these pictures.
If you’re a fan of simple, straightforward, and herbal cocktails, this Green Bee recipe is for you.
Ingredients for a Green Bee
2 oz gin
3/4 oz rosemary honey syrup*
3/4 oz lemon juice, freshly squeezed
How to Make a Green Bee
Add gin, rosemary honey syrup*, and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an additional rosemary sprig.
*To make the honey rosemary syrup, add 1/4 cup of honey, 1/4 cup of water, and 2 sprigs of rosemary to a small saucepan. Heat until the honey is dissolved and turn off the heat. Allow the rosemary to steep in the syrup until it cools. Remove the rosemary and pour into a small lidded container. Store in the fridge.
Add gin, rosemary honey syrup*, and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
Shake well, about 20 seconds.
Strain into a coupe glass.
Garnish with an additional rosemary sprig.
Notes
*To make the honey rosemary syrup, add 1/4 cup of honey, 1/4 cup of water, and 2 sprigs of rosemary to a small saucepan. Heat until the honey is dissolved and turn off the heat. Allow the rosemary to steep in the syrup until it cools. Remove the rosemary and pour into a small lidded container. Store in the fridge.
The Mother’s Garden is a drink chockfull of fresh, healthy ingredients. It can be made into a healthy cocktail with the addition of vodka or gin, or it can be enjoyed as an alcohol-free drink that’s sure to boost your spirits.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!
There are a lot of cocktails out there that have fresh, healthy ingredients. Gone are the days of heavily-processed syrups and mixes– the American imbiber’s become wiser. We’ve been enlightened to the dangers of trans fat, artificial sweeteners, and pesticides, and we eschew ingredients like artificial coloring and high-fructose corn syrup in favor of those found in nature. Research done by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2019 shows that Americans are slowly getting better at eating healthy, although this article written by Men’s Health reveals that there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
I think the majority of people do want to eat healthier. So what’s a cocktail-lover to do? Drinking less alcohol is always a good idea. But instead of removing alcohol altogether, there’s another alternative: mix your alcohol with fresh, healthy ingredients.
This is becoming a lot easier for the American consumer thanks to conscientious companies. There are several that forgo artificial coloring, GMO ingredients, and high-fructose corn syrup like my favorite grenadine company, Bar Smith. Having these kinds of syrup and mixer alternatives is a huge step in the direction of a healthier cocktail. But it doesn’t make a cocktail healthy. You’re spared from consuming fake junk, but you aren’t consuming ingredients with any health benefits.
Enter Brighter Tonic. A beverage that actually delivers the good stuff.
Brighter Tonic reached out to me a few months ago to see if I’d be interested in trying their product. A quick Google search of the company led me to a speedy reply: YES, PLEASE!
Brighter Tonic is a sparkling apple cider vinegar beverage. Apple cider vinegar is known for its acetic acid which promotes healthy digestion and improves mineral absorption. It’s made with raw organic apple cider vinegar, oils from plants, and maple syrup.
With Brighter Tonic accounting for 50% of the volume in the Mother’s Garden recipe, you can see why I can truthfully call this a healthy cocktail.
When I took my first sip of Bright (which I captured on an Instagram story), I was really surprised. The word “tonic” in the name made me think it’d taste like tonic water. But it actually tastes similar to kombucha. Ahh. Tonic as in the true definition of the word: a restorative drink that invigorates or strengthens.
I’m a kombucha fanatic and instantly fell in love with this new, healthy elixir.
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen me posting about this company. I actually posted a recipe quite similar to Mother’s Garden on an Instagram story. But I’ve been waiting for the day that Brighter Tonic launched their online sales because it didn’t feel right to rave about a fantastic recipe when the general populous had no means to buy the star ingredient.
Friends, that day has come! *cue Hallelujah chorus* You can now get Brighter Tonic shipped right to your door! They have three flavors: lemon lime, blood orange, and lemon ginger turmeric. I suggest getting the sampler pack so you can try them all. I can’t decide which one I like the most so it’s a good thing I’ve got another sampler on the way.
The point of this post has kinda been to talk about making a healthy cocktail, but you can certainly leave the alcohol out and make it a truly healthy beverage. I’ve made several alcohol-free drinks with Brighter. There are many days when I want something fun but I don’t want a cocktail. The bright (no pun intended) taste of Brighter means you won’t be left with a flavorless mocktail. And all of my alcohol-free friends said THANK YOU.
Perhaps the BEST news in this article is that if you use the code GIRL&TONIC20 between Monday 8-3-20 and Friday 8-7-20, you’ll get 20% off your online order of Brighter Tonic. How awesome is that?! Now you really do have to try it. I mean, it’s discounted. Who doesn’t love saving money?
The reason I’m calling this healthy cocktail or alcohol-free drink Mother’s Garden is two-fold:
1) I first made this recipe at my mom’s house using ingredients from her garden. (She’s actually got a great garden blog, with helpful articles about two of the ingredients in Mother Garden’s: cucumber & basil)
2) This is an alcohol-free drink that my mom is actually able to enjoy. You see, my mom is on a strict AIP (auto-immune protocol) diet due to some autoimmune health issues. This means that a lot of commercial products are off-limits to her, making it tricky to find mixers that agree with her body. However, since Brighter Tonic uses maple syrup as a sweetener, it falls on her “good list”! Big thank you to Brighter for using real, high-quality ingredients. You really stand out.
If you try the Mother’s Garden, or even just Brighter, let me know what you think in the comments below!
Ingredients for a Mother’s Garden Healthy Cocktail or Alcohol-Free Drink
1 1/2 oz gin or vodka (omit for alcohol-free or to be AIP-compliant*)
*Read this article if you’re curious to see if and when alcohol can be consumed on an AIP diet. Before imbibing, be sure to check with your physician, too.
How to Make a Mother’s Garden Healthy Cocktail or Alcohol-Free Drink
Add the cucumber slices and lime juice to a cocktail shaker. Muddle well, using a muddler or the back of a wooden spoon. Then, add the basil and gently muddle. Add the alcohol (or not), honey simple syrup, and ice. Shake well. Strain into a glass filled with ice. Top the rest of the glass off with the Brighter Tonic. Stir to incorporate. Garnish with a basil spring and a couple slices of lime and cucumber.
Mother’s Garden
A bright, refreshing, & healthy cocktail or alcohol-free drink made with lemon lime Brighter Tonic
1½ozgin or vodka (optional – omit to be AIP-friendly*)
½ozfresh lime juice
½ozhoney simple syrup** or maple syrup
1-2slicescucumber
6-8basil leaves
~4ozlemon-lime Brighter Tonic***
Instructions
Add the cucumber slices and lime juice to a cocktail shaker. Muddle well. Don't be afraid to put some muscle into it.
Then, add the basil and gently muddle.
Add the alcohol (or not), honey simple syrup, and ice. Shake well.
Strain into a glass filled with ice.
Top the rest of the glass off with the Brighter Tonic. Stir to incorporate.
Garnish with a basil spring and a couple slices of lime and cucumber.
Notes
*To learn about if and when alcohol can be consumed while following an AIP diet, you can talk to your physician and read this article.**Honey simple syrup takes 1 minute to make. Here’s how to do it.***Here’s the link to order Brighter Tonic online. You can try subbing a lemon-lime kombucha, too.
The Bee’s Knees cocktail is a classic drink that’s been around since the early 1900s. In recent years, with the rise of craft cocktails and home bartending, it’s regaining popularity. I’m glad it’s getting a lot of recognition these days.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!
There are a lot of classic cocktails out there that I’d never heard of prior to making my own drinks at home. I’d heard of a Daiquiri, an Old Fashioned, a French 75, and a Whiskey Sour. But now that I’m taking this mixology hobby more seriously, I’ve discovered other classics like the South Side and the New York Sour, and now the Bee’s Knees.
I looked up the history of the Bee’s Knees cocktail and, like so many other classic drinks, it’s got a great story. And again, like so many others, its origins date back to the Prohibition.
During the Prohibition-era, referring to something as “the bee’s knees” was a common way to say something was the best. And you could say that this cocktail recipe was the bee’s knees at covering up the smell and taste of bathtub gin.
Wait- what? Bathtub gin? Remember that this recipe dates back to the Prohibition… which means that alcohol was outlawed. With no legal way to mass-produce liquor, innovative Americans came up with alternatives. Some was made in bathtubs, yes, but that’s really just a term to refer to illicit, homemade alcohol.
Gin was the easiest of the liquors to make, which is why there are so many Prohibition-era cocktails that use gin. It was really hard to mimic the flavors of bourbon and scotch since they couldn’t risk aging anything for fear of authorities discovering their stores. (Some people actually used dead rats, rotten meat, and wood tar in attempts to emulate these distinct flavors… yeah…) If you’re interested in reading more about bathtub liquor, check out this article by the Smithsonian and this one by Prohibition: An Interactive History (super cool site, btw).
There are several different recipes out there for a Bee’s Knees cocktail. While all recipes utilize the same 3 ingredients, there are a lot of different ratios. I tried a few and found I like this one the most. I found that using equal parts lemon juice to honey syrup allowed the honey flavor to come through. Feel free to play around with the ratios a bit to see what you like.
I saw the name of this cocktail pop up somewhere in my Instagram feed a while back and it instantly caught my attention. I love bees (all insects, really).
I really do love bugs and creepy crawlies. When I was little, my favorite past time was looking for (and collecting…) rollie pollies, worms, and beetles outside with the neighborhood kids. And when the weather didn’t allow for that, I’d get out my giant Sterlite bin filled with plastic bugs and set them up all over my room and play “insect explorer”.
One day, I’d love to add some bees to our little homestead out here in the country. How cool would it be to make a Bee’s Knees using honey my own bees made? But don’t worry, I don’t plan on adding bathtub gin to my liquor collection anytime soon.
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice.
Shake well, about 20 seconds.
Strain into a coupe glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist.
Notes
To make the honey simple syrup, heat 1 part water to 1 part honey until the honey dissolves into the water. This makes it much easier to incorporate honey into an ice-cold drink. For more information about honey simple syrup, you can read my post about it.
Keyword gin, honey, honey simple syrup, lemon, lemon juice
Down the Bunny Trail is the perfect Easter cocktail if you’re not in the mood for something too sweet. It’s essentially a spiced honey French 75. For some reason, when I think “Easter cocktail”, champagne comes to mind. Maybe because of the association of Easter brunch and mimosas, maybe because champagne feels bright and springy. Or maybe because of the association with celebration. And as a Christian, Easter is definitely a celebration of something more than candy-filled eggs.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!
Don’t get me wrong, though. I love me some candy and the nonreligious traditions of Easter. It was always one of my favorite holidays as a child. I remember anxiously waiting while my parents went and hid our Easter eggs and being stoked to FINALLY get to eat the Cadbury creme eggs I’d seen on the kitchen counter. I remember the distinct smell of egg-dyeing kits, and watching the egg teeter on the thin wire ladle as I dipped it down into the colored cups. Nowadays, egg dyeing is outta control. I’m glad my daughter is young and won’t be expecting anything extravagant this year. Because sheesh, with Pinterest these days, some holiday crafts are beyond me.
The color of Down the Bunny Trail comes from the combination of lemon juice and a pinch of deep magenta beet powder. Honestly, I was going for a pretty pink color for my Easter cocktail but I think the orangey coral result is gorgeous. It looks like Easter egg dye. I promise it doesn’t taste like that though. It tastes like spicy sparkling bliss.
Beet powder would also be a great way to naturally dye your Easter eggs. I use it to dye cakes and frostings. If you aren’t using too much of it, it really doesn’t affect the flavor of baked goods. You can also use it in smoothies for a boost of vitamins and minerals. Or make yourself a Passionfruit Paloma with beet syrup as the sweetener.
If you’re not a huge champagne fan or if you’re the only one in your house who’ll be drinking it, consider buying the mini bottles of sparkling wine. That way, you won’t be wasting an entire bottle of the good stuff.
Ingredients for a Spiced Honey French 75
1 1/2 oz spiced gin (or regular gin)
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz honey-ginger simple syrup**
pinch of beet powder-– mostly for color but it does add a slight earthy flavor that I dig
1-3 oz champagne, depending on the size of your glass
How to Make A Spiced Honey French 75
Make your honey-ginger syrup first. To make this, I added a small amount of ginger paste (the size of my pinky nail) to my honey simple syrup recipe. If I had fresh ginger on hand, I would’ve used that instead. If you have fresh ginger root, simmer a 1/2-inch knob in the honey syrup for about 5 minutes.
Add your gin, lemon juice, honey-ginger syrup, and beet powder to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well to mix up the beet powder. Pour the now-coral elixir into either a champagne glass (the traditional way to serve a French 75) or into a lowball glass filled with ice. Top your Easter cocktail with champagne.
To make this feel more like an Easter cocktail, I garnished it with a bun-bun on a stick. I feel like that screams Easter, no? I got a pack of 4 at the Dollar Tree for–you guessed it–a dollar. I’m pretty obsessed with the little pom tail.
Looking for other springtime drinks? Check out the light & lemony Tom Collins, a tart Gimlet or Lemon Drop, or my current favorite, the Golden Pothos. All of these are super refreshing and perfect for porch-sippin’.
The ingredients in Solomon’s Bazaar are a little more exotic and the flavor profile’s more sophisticated but this drink is still far from difficult to make. Besides, once you invest in some of these ingredients, your home bar will go from basic to impressive. You might even find yourself inspired to experiment with them.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like!
The particular brand of gin that I used makes the drink, in my opinion, but I think any brand could work. Opihr was my inspiration for this gin cocktail and I built everything around it. It’s considered an oriental spiced gin and uses spices and botanicals meant to evoke the tastes & aromas of exotic spice markets: black pepper, cardamom, and ginger from India, cubeb from Malaysia, coriander seed from Morocco, cumin from Turkey, bitter oranges from Spain, angelica from Germany, juniper from Italy, and grapefruit peel.
Opihr gets its name from the legendary port that flourished during the days of King Solomon; it was renowned for its gold, silver, pearls, ivory, apes, peacocks, and sandalwood.
The backstory behind this gin inspired me to create an exotic gin cocktail that could recreate the experience of walking through an ancient Middle Eastern spice market. Luckily for you, you won’t have to wade through bustling streets to find what you need. Amazon Prime leaves with you no excuse to recreate the exotic and sophisticated Solomon’s Bazaar.
The Ingredients for Solomon’s Bazaar
1 1/2 – 2 oz. gin (if you live in the Lonestar State like me, Opihr can only be found at Spec’s)
Zest half an orange over your cocktail shaker. Add ice. Pour in gin, juice, & honey syrup. Carefully add a quarter teaspoon of rosewater. You can always add more if you want but I have ruined many a drink by accidentally using too much. Add two dashes of cardamom bitters (or traditional aromatic bitters if its what you have). Shake shake shake. Strain into a coupe glass. Sip & find yourself transported to the markets of Opihr.
1-2dashescardamom bitters(can sub aromatic bitters)
Instructions
Zest half an orange over your cocktail shaker.
Add ice. Pour in gin, juices, & honey syrup. Carefully add ⅛ teaspoon of rosewater and two dashes of cardamom bitters.
Shake well.
Strain into a coupe glass.
Garnish with orange zest.
Notes
If you don’t have spiced gin, traditional gin will do. I really do recommend Opihr for this specific recipe though.For the honey simple syrup recipe, click here.
Keyword cardamom, ginger beer, honey, lemon, orange blossom water
