Benedictine Cocktails: Vieux Carré, Bobby Burns, Singapore Sling and the B&B Question

A teaspoon of Bénédictine is about five milliliters in a drink of roughly ninety. It is nonetheless the reason a Bobby Burns tastes finished, while a plain Scotch Manhattan tastes as though a step was skipped. That disproportion, a very small pour doing a very large job, is the most useful thing to understand about the bottle, and it explains why Cocktail Builder lists well over a hundred drinks that use it, many asking for a quarter ounce or less.

What the liqueur actually contributes

Bénédictine is made in Fécamp, on the Normandy coast, from a recipe that the wine merchant Alexandre Le Grand put into production in 1863. The monastic story printed around the label is better read as marketing than as history. The house keeps its botanicals secret beyond saying there are 27 of them, and in the glass the liqueur reads as honey first, then citrus peel, then a slow, warm spice that outlasts the sugar.

Most recipes built around it follow from its being sweet and strong at once. The sugar lets it stand in for syrup, while the 40% alcohol means it does so without adding the water a syrup would bring to a stirred drink. A faint bitterness underneath keeps that sweetness from reading as candy, so a quarter ounce can round off a strong whiskey drink without turning it into dessert. Push past about half an ounce in a drink with no citrus, though, and the honey takes over, which is why the best-known recipes use it so sparingly.

Whiskey drinks, stirred and shaken

The Vieux Carré is the drink most people meet the bottle through. It takes three-quarters of an ounce each of rye, cognac and sweet vermouth, a single teaspoon of Bénédictine, and a dash each of Peychaud’s and Angostura. Rye brings pepper and cognac brings dried fruit, and the teaspoon of liqueur reconciles them, because its honey and spice overlap with both. The history, the bar at the Hotel Monteleone and the case for stirring it long are in our full Vieux Carré write-up.

The Bobby Burns sets the same teaspoon against two ounces of Scotch and an ounce of sweet vermouth, finished with a lemon twist. Since it is named for the poet, it has become the standard drink for Burns Night in January. A softer reading, the Bobby Burns Cocktail, runs whisky and vermouth at equal parts, which suits a peated Scotch that would otherwise flatten everything else in the glass.

Where those two treat the liqueur as seasoning, the Monte Carlo makes it the only sweetener: two ounces of rye, three-quarters of an ounce of Bénédictine and two dashes of Peychaud’s. Structurally it is an Old Fashioned in which liqueur replaces sugar. Our recipe card says to shake it, although stirring keeps the texture silkier and the color clear.

The Kentucky Colonel follows the identical template with bourbon and orange bitters. Because bourbon’s vanilla stacks on top of the honey, many drinkers will prefer the drier Kentucky Colonel #2, which cuts the liqueur to a quarter ounce. Shaken with lemon instead, the pairing becomes the Frisco Cocktail, a rye sour sweetened by nothing but a quarter ounce of Bénédictine. It drinks tart and dry, and it is a fair test of whether the bottle deserves a permanent place.

Why there are so many Singapore Slings

The Singapore Sling, associated with the Raffles Hotel, has been rewritten so often that our database holds more than half a dozen versions. They sort into two families, according to how much of the liqueur each one trusts.

The older, shorter style is close to equal parts. The Singapore Sling (Original) takes an ounce each of gin, cherry liqueur, Bénédictine and lime, plus soda and a dash of bitters, so the liqueur is a lead flavor rather than an accent. The pineapple style, listed simply as the Singapore Sling, drops the Bénédictine to a quarter ounce. Four ounces of pineapple juice, along with Cherry Heering, Cointreau and grenadine, then carry a much longer drink.

Outside the sling, gin gets along with Bénédictine best when dry vermouth is present to hold the sugar in check. The Merry Widow does exactly that, with a quarter ounce of the liqueur, bitters and an absinthe rinse. The Chrysanthemum Cocktail removes the gin altogether, setting two ounces of dry vermouth against an ounce and a half of Bénédictine and a trace of Pernod, which makes it one of the few lower-alcohol drinks here.

Bénédictine versus B&B

B&B is Bénédictine blended with brandy, bottled by the same house since the 1930s, reportedly because bartenders and their customers had already spent years combining the two by hand. The brandy dilutes the sugar, so B&B is drier and more spirit-forward, and of the two it is the better bottle for sipping neat. Our B&B recipe is the homemade version: half an ounce of each, with the brandy floated over the liqueur in a cordial glass. Making it yourself lets you tilt the ratio toward brandy for a drier result.

Substitution works more easily in one direction than the other. B&B can stand in for Bénédictine in a stirred drink if the pour is raised slightly, since each ounce carries less sweetness. Using straight Bénédictine where a recipe asks for B&B, by contrast, calls for less liqueur plus a splash of brandy. Recipes written for the bottled blend include the Two Turtles, with Canadian whisky and Cointreau, and the Orange Monk, with Grand Marnier. The B&B Collins goes taller, stretching brandy and Bénédictine with lemon, sugar and soda.

Apple brandy and cream

Apple brandy takes to the liqueur unusually well, because the fruit gives the honey something to cling to. The Widow’s Kiss combines it with equal three-quarter ounces of Bénédictine and another herbal liqueur (yellow Chartreuse in the classic spec), plus three dashes of bitters. Our card insists, correctly, that it be shaken so the dilution softens the sugar. The Honeymoon Cocktail turns the same pairing into a sour with lemon and triple sec, while the Brandy Benedictine Cream adds an ounce of cream and belongs after dinner. Brandy drinks without the liqueur are collected in what to mix with brandy.

At a quarter ounce per drink a bottle lasts a long time, and Bénédictine is in no hurry to go anywhere. At 40% alcohol it keeps for years once opened, losing a little aroma rather than spoiling, like the other strong liqueurs in our shelf-life guide. That leaves time for the mezcal drinks, such as the Herrumbrero, which needs only an ounce of mezcal, a quarter ounce of the liqueur and two dashes of bitters.

Last modified on October 19, 2026