The story of the Bee's Knees

This deceptively simple – and aptly named – combination of gin, honey and lemon, sometimes with a little orange juice too, frequently finds itself linked not only with the American socialite Margaret, or Molly Brown, but with Prohibition-era drinking in general, often cited as an example of the kind of drink created to mask questionable gin during that era. Yet its true birthplace was likely across the pond, in Paris.

You see, Frank Meier might not have survived the Titanic, nor been the subject of a 1960s Broadway musical about his life, but he is the more likely creator of this enduring classic, while he was head bartender of the Ritz in the 1920s. Indeed, in his The Artistry of Mixing Drinks (1936) – a wonderful tome containing not only 500 drinks, but recipes for sandwiches, a brief history of horse racing, antidotes for poisons and more – Meier marks this as one of nearly 40 original creations in the book, and a few previous mentions in print support his claim.