The BORA Bee
A prohibition classic, modernised
This drink is a riff on A Bee’s Knees. The creation of Frank Meier, a bartender at the Ritz in Paris in the 1920’s, this is a delicious cocktail traditionally featuring gin, lemon juice, and honey that has fallen out of the limelight in recent years. We plan to change this and – pardon the pun – bring the buzz back to this delightful cocktail.
The spicy and aromatic flavours in BORA bring out the honey and lemon notes, and blend to make an unusual cocktail that, you’ll find hard to put down. It’s a refreshing and easy to make cocktail, that most people haven’t tried before; what’s not to like?
What You Need
- 50mls BORA Botanical Rum
- 30mls (to taste) of Honey syrup. (How to make honey syrup.)
- 20mls Fresh lemon juice (to taste)
- Two sprigs of lavender.
Take a cocktail shaker base and fill two thirds full of ice. Measure and pour the rum, honey, and lemon juice into the shaker and add the sprig of lavender. Stir all together for about half a minute.
Stirring, rather than shaking, gently combines the three ingredients and allows the lavender to infuse the cocktail without releasing any bitterness. Shaking would damage the leaves and muddle the flavours as well as making the cocktail too cold. Serving the cocktail after stirring allows the fragrance of the honey to come through slightly stronger, as its not mooted by the ice. It also allows more of the fruit from the quince and plum to come to the fore.
Using a small straw or spoon, taste the cocktail to check it is the right balance of sweet and sour. Adjust as necessary and give a final stir if needed. Finally, strain into a glass and garnish with the remaining sprig of fresh lavender.
Tasting Notes:
This is a simple recipe with no place for any of the ingredients to hide. Honey comes in such a wide range of flavours that changing the type of honey will alter the aroma of the drink; experiment with orange blossom or wild flower honeys to really take this drink up a level.
Chilling the BORA down accentuates the notes of bay in our rum, which balance very nicely with fresh citrus flavours of the lemon.