As the beloved American painter and PBS icon, Bob Ross, used to say, “We don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents.” Indeed, one such happy accident produced the celebrated gold rush cocktail, a luscious bourbon-based concoction that is now considered a modern classic. The serendipitous invention occurred in 2000 at the then-newly-opened Milk & Honey cocktail bar on the Lower East Side in New York City.
Since closed, this speakeasy-style bar quickly rose to legendary status during its short-lived tenure, birthing the careers of some of NYC’s most iconic bartenders and playing an integral role in the burgeoning craft cocktail movement of the early 2000s. At the heart and helm of Milk & Honey was its owner, Sasha Petraske, a renowned cocktail innovator and one of the most influential bartenders until his untimely passing in 2015. It was Petraske’s childhood friend, T.J. Siegal, who created the drink at Milk & Honey not long after it opened.
Although Siegal worked at the famous bar later on (becoming a notable fixture in the hospitality industry in his own right), he was merely a patron at the time, enjoying his go-to after-work drink — a bourbon sour. As the tale goes, Petraske and his crew were experimenting with ways to improve upon classic cocktails such as the honeysuckle daiquiri (which uses a honey-based syrup), and Siegal — who had been chatting them up at the bar that day — asked if he could sub in that honeyed-syrup in place of his sour’s usual simple syrup. Thus, the gold rush was born. Siegal named it before he’d even finished that first drink.
The gold rush: More than just a golden hue and a catchy name
If the name “gold rush” conjures up images of tumbleweeds and wagon wheels, that’s not by mistake. Reflecting back on its creation in a 2024 interview with Wine Enthusiast, Siegal said, “Looking at the drink, there’s a golden color, and you get a rush of that kind of flavor as you’re drinking it … it’s a feeling.” Vibe aside, it’s that honeysweet-puckery taste that’s propelled the drink to worldwide fame.
Often described as a superior whiskey sour by those spreading its gospel, the beauty of the gold rush cocktail lies in its simplicity — 2 ounces of bourbon, ¾ ounces of lemon juice, and ¾ ounces of honey syrup. The trick is to use Milk & Honey’s syrup ratio: 3 parts honey to 1 part water. Perhaps it’s this ideal balance of sweet-to-sour that makes the cocktail so celebrated. Though Milk & Honey’s version most likely used Knob Creek or 12-year Elijah Craig (its house bourbon), your favorite will do.
One of the great things about using honey syrup is that the drink still tastes delicious whether you use a bourbon under $50 or one of the 30 best-ranked bourbon brands. It’s a technique that, according to David A. Embury in his 1886 book “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks,” was pioneered by Prohibition-era bar masters to mask the sharp edges of low-quality “bathtub” gin spirits at the time. With honey, citrus, and bourbon shaken to icy-cold perfection, it’s an ideal sunny summer libation to toast its 25th anniversary with.
