The Bee’s Knees is an undisputed basic. A Prohibition-era gin bitter made with honey, it’s beloved, not simply due to its old-timey title, but additionally as a result of it harks again to the “golden age” of cocktails. However for Bee’s Knees followers who wish to department out, there’s a deep reduce that’s principally been left to historical past—till now. Enter the Bebbo. 

The primary extant recipe we’ve for the Bebbo comes from a little-known 1937 guide out of New Orleans: Gerald Marco and Hyman Gale’s The How and When. The recipe takes the gin-lemon-honey mixture of the Bee’s Knees and provides orange juice—a easy change that rounds out the Prohibition basic’s sharp edges. The truth is, Ted Haigh purposefully excluded the Bee’s Knees in his guide Classic Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, making a word within the Bebbo entry concerning the orange-laced model’s superiority. Many years later, Michael Madrusan, proprietor of The Everleigh in Melbourne, Australia, additionally turned keen on the drink. 

Again when his bar opened in 2011, Madrusan was poring over cocktail books for analysis. Certainly one of them was the 1977 basic Jones’ Full Barguide, an enormous compendium that incorporates 1000’s of recipes, together with the Bebbo. (By the way, the guide has acted as a significant inspiration, in breadth and variety of recipes, for the forthcoming Madrusan’s Cocktail Compendium.)

Each the Thirties and ’70s recipes name for about an oz. and a half of gin, a good quantity of lemon and small quantities of orange juice, however the ensuing drink might be too bitter. For his model, Madrusan elevated the gin and orange quotients barely, whereas lowering the quantity of lemon, yielding a drink that he says has been extra balanced, and well-liked with visitors.

The unique Thirties recipe requires dry gin, a selection additionally implied within the Jones information, which was written at a time when “gin” had unequivocally come to imply the London dry model. Madrusan reaches for a bottling from Australian distiller 4 Pillars. The model’s Uncommon Dry gin combines spices like cardamom, star anise and cinnamon with “tons of citrus,” he says, components that make the expression really feel tailored for the Bebbo. For Madrusan’s recipe, two ounces of the gin marries harmoniously with half an oz. every of lemon and orange juices.

To provide the bitter its pleasing heft, The Everleigh’s home honey syrup is additional wealthy, with a honey-to-water ratio of three to 1. However what’s most essential, Madrusan says, is the honey the bar makes use of: It comes from Victoria and has the distinctive profile of toffee and stewed fruit.

The Everleigh’s signature Bebbo, with its spiced gin and flavorful honey syrup, is strengthened by an fragrant garnish of Angostura bitters utilized in a stripe throughout the drink’s floor. The proper line might be onerous to realize, says Madrusan, however “in case you get a transparent stripe, effectively finished, you.”

On a uncommon full shift behind the bar just lately, Madrusan says he was pleasantly shocked that visitors have been ordering the Bebbo all night time lengthy. It’s a type of “positive issues,” he says, that has mass attraction. It’s nearly unattainable to not like. “Nonetheless you have a look at this drink,” he says, “it’s only a banger.”