Sour · Anytime · Summer

Penicillin

Blended Scotch with lemon and honey-ginger syrup, smoky Islay floated on top. Warming and spicy — the name is a joke that stuck.

Base: Scotch
Glass: Old fashioned glass
Method: Shake
Strength: 19% ABV

Ingredients

60 mlBlended scotch whisky
7.5 mlLagavulin 16y
22.5 mlFresh Lemon Juice1 swap
Fresh lime juicemedium
A touch sharper
22.5 mlHoney Syrup1 swap
Honey syrup or agavemedium
Little change
3 slicesquarter size sliced fresh ginger

How to make

Technique

Shake · 10–15s

Shaking chills the drink fast while adding dilution and a light texture.

Muddle fresh ginger in a shaker and add the remaining ingredients except for the Islay single malt whisky.
Fill the shaker with ice and shake.
Fine train into a chilled Old Fashioned glass with ice.
Float the single malt whisky on top.

Serve

Glass

Old fashioned glassAlso fine: Double old fashioned glass, Rocks glass, Tumbler

Garnish

Garnish with candied ginger slices.Candied, not fresh — fresh ginger is too hot to sit on the rim.

Taste & nutrition

19%ABV

205kcal

2.11Drinks

StrengthMedium

Sweet to dryBalanced

Estimated from ingredient amounts and assumed ABVs — not a lab measurement.

Good to know

Use freshly squeezed juice — bottled tastes flat.
Add the fizzy mixer last so it keeps its bubbles.

History

Year2005

PlaceNew York, USA

Created bySam Ross

Sam Ross invented the Penicillin in 2005 at Milk & Honey in New York, and it fast became a modern classic. Blended scotch is shaken with honey-ginger syrup and lemon, then topped with a float of smoky Islay whisky. The peaty float is what gives it its distinctive medicinal, healing character. It helped define the craft cocktail movement.

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