The Penicillin might be the best cocktail invented in the last twenty-five years. That’s a big statement and I stand behind it.
Sam Ross created it at Milk and Honey in New York around 2005, and the idea was genuinely original — a sour built on blended Scotch, sweetened with honey-ginger syrup, brightened with lemon, and then finished with a float of peaty Islay Scotch on top. The smoke from the float hits your nose before the first sip. Then you drink through to the sweeter, more approachable base underneath. It’s a cocktail that tells a story as you drink it, and not many drinks can say that.
The name is a joke, obviously. It’s medicine. It’ll fix what ails you.
Now — this is a bourbon and whiskey site, and the Penicillin is traditionally made with Scotch. But Blanton’s Single Barrel brings a complexity and a barrel character that works surprisingly well in this framework, and for readers who don’t keep Scotch in the house, it’s a legitimate and genuinely excellent variation worth knowing. The traditional Scotch version is noted in the variations below.
Why Blanton’s Here
Blanton’s Single Barrel is a 93 proof bourbon from Buffalo Trace with a rich, complex profile — dried fruit, vanilla, caramel, a little nuttiness from the single barrel aging. It’s got enough depth to carry a drink with ginger, honey, and lemon competing for attention, and the finish is long enough to still show up after all of that.
The absence of smoke is the main difference from the traditional Scotch version. What you get instead is a warmer, rounder drink that’s more approachable but no less interesting. Think of it as a cousin rather than a copy.
Eagle Rare 10 Year is the step up here — same distillery, more complexity, worth it for a drink this good. Evan Williams Single Barrel is the budget path and a solid one.
The Honey-Ginger Syrup Is Worth Making
The syrup is what makes the Penicillin the Penicillin. Fresh ginger simmered into a honey syrup gives you something no bottled product can replicate — a spicy, aromatic sweetness that bridges the gap between the lemon and the whiskey in a way that plain simple syrup never could.
It takes about ten minutes. Combine equal parts honey and water in a small saucepan, add several coins of fresh ginger, warm it over low heat for five minutes without boiling, then let it steep for another five minutes off the heat. Strain out the ginger, let it cool, and refrigerate. It keeps for two weeks and it’s one of those preparations that makes everything around it better.
The ginger heat is part of the drink. Don’t be shy with it.
The Float
The traditional Penicillin floats a heavily peated Islay Scotch — Laphroaig is the classic choice — on top. For the bourbon version, a small float of a peated American single malt like Westland Peated or Balcones Peated works if you want to keep it American. Or skip the float entirely — the drink is excellent without it, just different in character.
If you do the float, use the bar spoon technique from the New York Sour — hold the back of the spoon at the surface and pour slowly. You want the smoke to sit on top, not mix in.
