A Penicillin for Every Mood

What makes a drink a modern classic? While there are no hard and fast rules, there are two key factors: how far the cocktail has traveled outside of its birthplace bar, and how many bartenders take its essential format and remix it into something both familiar and new.

The Penicillin—a mix of Scotch, honey-ginger syrup and lemon juice, finished with a float of more Scotch—is one of the most riffed-on drinks today. (Also, it is itself a riff on the Gold Rush, which is a riff on the Whiskey Sour.) Around the world, bartenders treat the drink as both a muse and a blank canvas, swapping the base spirit, turning the drink hot or frozen and serving it up or tall. Here are some of the ways it shows up at bars today.