2 ounces mild blended Scotch
1/2 ounce ginger syrup *see note
1/2 ounce honey syrup **see note
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/4 ounce Islay single-malt Scotch
Garnish: Candied ginger
Combine blended Scotch with the honey syrup, ginger syrup, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice.
Shake until frosty and strain into a rocks glass filled with one large cube. (or regular ice cubes)
Gently pour the Islay Scotch over the top and garnish with candied ginger.
Notes:
*To make ginger syrup, combine equal parts fresh pressed ginger juice and sugar, and shake or let sit until the sugar dissolves. Don’t heat it to dissolve the sugar. Refrigerate until use. Best used within 24-48 hours.
If you don’t have a vegetable juicer, you can grate the ginger with a grater and then press the juice out through a strainer or cheesecloth. If you live somewhere near a juice place you might be able to have them press it for you, and I think some places sell bottled ginger juice.
**To make honey syrup, combine equal parts raw honey and water. Stir or shake until combined. Refrigerate until use.
The Penicillin was created in 2005 at a bar in the Lower East Side called Milk & Honey. One of their most popular cocktails was a whiskey sour made with honey, which they called a Gold Rush. In 2005, a 22 year old Australian bartender named Sam Ross decided to tinker with the Gold Rush recipe. He cut the honey syrup in the recipe with fresh pressed ginger juice sweetened with sugar, and then decided to swap the bourbon in the recipe with a mellow blended scotch.
Then, to play with the aroma of the drink, he added just a ¼ oz of a smoky single malt scotch over the top, so the smell of smoke from the Scotch would hit your nose before you ever tasted the spiciness of the ginger, the tartness of the lemon, and the sweetness of the honey. It was complex, a little weird, and played with your palate in a really interesting way. He named it a Penicillin because honey, lemon, & ginger are flavors we commonly see together when we’re sick. Like in cough drops, medicine, and hot toddys.
At first the Penicillin wasn’t even on the menu, but was still creating a buzz at Milk & Honey as a secret, off-menu special for New Yorkers in the know. By 2006, it was blowing up, and the next thing you knew, it was everywhere. Within just a couple years, it was appearing on cocktail menus across the globe, and one cocktail historian called the Penicillin “the most well-traveled and renowned new cocktail of the 21st century.”