#CocktailHour: Watch – How to make a Rosemary Bee's Knees cocktail

If you're looking for a simple summer drink in a glass, you can't do much better than a Bee's Knees. It is as excellent as the name suggests.

This one we've made is a little twist on the original recipe of gin, lemon and honey. It's thought it was created by Frank Meier at the Hotel Ritz Paris in the 1920s. Instead of a gin sour (made with sugar syrup), the honey gives it a bit more depth and richness. Although, there are suggestions that at the time, the gin was so bad that honey was used to better cover up the smell and taste!

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Fortunately, that's not the reason for using honey today. We've made our Bee's Knees using small-batch Cotton Gin from the Otterbeck distillery in Yorkshire. It's made using Yorkshire watercress, coriander, local spruce, rowan berries, nettle leaves and mint botanicals, which all give a lovely herbaceous and floral note to the gin, which works really well in a Bee's Knees.

The 'Cotton' name comes from the building the distillery is in, which is built on the site of an 18th century, five-storey cotton and silk milk. And to help make the cotton at the mill, a 'Cotton Ginny' machine was used!

Rosemary Bee's Knees cocktail recipe

Play video

0:23

50ml Cotton Gin

25ml lemon juice

25ml rosemary and honey syrup (this is really simple to make. Heat up honey and water in a 1:1 ratio i.e. 50ml honey/50ml water, with a few sprigs of rosemary, stir until combined, then let it cool)

Sprig of rosemary for garnish

Method

Add ice to your shaker.

Add your gin, lemon juice and honey syrup to the shaker.

Shake it (like a Polaroid picture).

Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a sprig of rosemary.

Enjoy in the sunshine!

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Have you tried a Bee's Knees cocktail before?