Swizzling Honey Pot

00:00 September 30, 2011

Swizzing the Honey Pot

Of all the ways to add sweetness—simple syrup, muddled fruit, agave—it’s a trip from the hive that delivers a sultry bottom note to your cocktail.

For bars looking to stretch their locavore cred, honey is a shelf-stable, seasonless fit. It’s tricky to add straight honey to cold drinks, though, so bars are finding other ways to bring this sticky, sexy stir-in.

In The Bailout, Coquette Bistro and Wine Bar spins local honey into a syrup for a smoother swirl with bourbon and allspice dram (basically, a darkly spiced rum).

“Honey syrup adds sweetness and smoothness to an otherwise harsher blend of bourbon, lemon and allspice,” says Ali Mills, Coquette’s head bartender and bar manager.

“Basically, it rounds the drink out.” The syrup also draws out Benedictine’s lemon-honey flavors.

About a tablespoon of locally-based syrup goes into the Bailout, qualifying it as allergy relief (try it this fall).

The bistro’s other honey-drenched drink, The Birds and The Bees (unlike the squirmy, if fascinating, talk you remember from childhood), is a lush, beestung bit of a martini, with a floral honey nose. Created by

Mills, it relies on whiskey-honey liqueur.

Honey’s role here is much different. Mills says that the honey liqueur adds a “darker, aromatic and alcoholic component” to the floral St. Germain and gin (in this drink, both straight and dolled up with lavender). The liqueur also brings a languid syrupy body to the glass, grounding the cocktail’s frillier notes.

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the baiLoUt Developed by Cole Newton, courtesy of Coquette Bistro • 1.5 ounces bourbon • .5 ounce Benedictine • .5 ounce homemade honey syrup* • 1 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed • About .25 ounce St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram • Stir with ice or build. Serve in an oldfashioned glass with ice. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

*Mix 2 parts honey with 1 part boiling water and stir until fully dissolved.

the birDS anD the beeS Written by Ali Mills, courtesy of Coquette Bistro

• 1.5 ounces Tanqueray gin

• 1 ounce St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

• .25 ounce Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey Liqueur

• .25 ounce lavender-infused gin*

• Combine, shake with ice, then strain into a martini glass. Top with .5 ounce soda water.

* Infuse a quart of Tanqueray with a quarter cup of dried, edible lavender flowers overnight. Strain and serve.

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