Name: Honey Badger
Total time: 2 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 1 sprig Rosemary sprig; 45 ml Bourbon whiskey; 15 ml Chartreuse Yellow; 10 ml Ginger syrup; 10 ml Honey and water syrup; 20 ml Lemon juice; 2 dash Lemon bitters

Honey Badger
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Serve in an Old-fashioned glass

Ingredients:
1 sprig	Rosemary sprig
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Bourbon whiskey
¹⁄₂ oz	Yellow Chartreuse (or génépy liqueur)
¹⁄₃ oz	Monin Ginger Syrup
¹⁄₃ oz	Honey syrup (3 parts honey to 1 water by weight)
²⁄₃ oz	Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
2 dash	Fee Brothers Lemon Bitters

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

Garnish: Lemon zest twist (discarded) & rosemary sprig

How to make:

De-stalk a sprig of rosemary and MUDDLE the leaves with bourbon in base of shaker. Add other ingredients, SHAKE with ice and strain into ice-filled glass.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

If you like the Penicillin Cocktail, then you'll also like this rosemary, ginger, lemon and honey infused bourbon cocktail, shaken and served on-the-rocks.

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History:

Adapted from a recipe created in 2015 by Liam Baer at Fish and Meat in Hong Kong. (Our thanks to Kshitiz Gurung at Stockton, Hong Kong for passing on this recipe.)

This drink takes its name from the eponymous honey badger, a carnivorous animal which despite its name bears more resemblance to an oversized weasel or polecat than it does to other members of the badger species. It is native to Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.

The original recipe uses rosemary-infused bourbon* and homemade ginger syrup**.

*Rosemary infused bourbon: Drop 6 fresh rosemary sprigs into a bottle of bourbon. Leave to infuse for 48 hours shaking occasionally, then strain and rebottle.

**Ginger syrup: Stir 1/3 cup water and ½ cup brown sugar and in a saucepan and gently heat until sugar is dissolved. Transfer the brown sugar syrup you have made into a blender and add 1 cup peeled and chopped fresh ginger. Blend into a paste and strain to remove solids. Bottle and refrigerate.

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Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Avery Garnett

21st January 2024 at 18:39

Better with a quarter ounce of islay whisky. My issue is that it sits in between the penicillin (with the honey-ginger whiskey) and the last word/final ward (with the chartreuse and rosemary) and whilst I love both, I don't know if they work as well together.

G. M. Genovese

30th June 2023 at 10:38

Made this twice in a row, but using a different base spirit, bonded bourbon, then gin. Both are pretty tasty, though I preferred the (Ford's) gin version. I did use Chartreuse Verte for both, adding to its punch. The ginger syrup I made today using a 2:3:3 ratio I've come to prefer: (by weight) ginger, agave syrup, water, with cracked pepper added for zing. Also used ginger bitters instead. Great drink specs-wise and for those (like me) who have an out-of-control rosemary bush in the garden.