Honeymoon

Not honestly. Drambuie gets closest on honey but drags Scotch in with it, and yellow Chartreuse is drier and far more assertive. B&B will do if it's what you own, though it has already been cut with brandy, so expect something rounder and less herbal.

Fifteen milliliters is already a third of the apple brandy. At 22 the saffron and honey stop seasoning the drink and become the drink, and by 30 it drinks like a liqueur with a splash of juice. Measure it rather than free-pouring; thick liqueurs overshoot easily.

Any small stemmed glass, a white wine glass included, as long as you don't fill it. The stem matters because there's no ice here to keep your hand off the drink. A chilled rocks glass works at a push, but it warms fast and the herbal top notes go first.

Yes, though it's easy to miss what it's doing. It isn't sweetening anything the Bénédictine hasn't covered twice over. What it adds is bright orange peel across the top of a drink that would otherwise smell entirely of honey and dried herb.

A classic Honeymoon calls for 45 ml (1.5 oz) Apple brandy, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Bénédictine, 8 ml (0.25 oz) Triple sec / Cointreau, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Fresh lemon juice. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Honeymoon is roughly 34% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it spirit-forward — closer to a Martini than to a beer, so sip it slowly.

A Honeymoon is shaken — the rule of thumb is to shake anything with citrus juice. About 13 seconds with plenty of ice chills and dilutes it correctly.