Honey Syrup substitute

Best substitute

Honey thinned with hot water (making it yourself)

3 parts honey to 1 part hot water by volume, then use 1:1 in place of the honey syrup

Best for Bee's Knees

Close match

This is not really a substitute, it is the recipe, and it is the answer almost everyone actually needs. Put the honey in a jar, add the just-boiled water, stir or shake for about twenty seconds until it is smooth and pours like warm maple syrup, then use it straight away or chill it.

Other honey syrup substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Honey stirred into the warm part of the recipe
Close match
Use about three quarters as much honey as the recipe asked of honey syrup
If the drink has any warm component, hot tea, hot water for a toddy, a warm base for a marinade, you can skip the dilution step entirely and dissolve honey directly.
What changes
A honey syrup is roughly three quarters honey, which is where the ratio comes from.
Best for
hot toddies, hot tea, glazes and marinades, warm dressings
This does not work for a shaken or stirred cold drink. Honey at fridge or ice temperature is essentially a solid and will sit in a blob at the bottom of the tin, leaving the drink both under-sweet and grainy.
3Simple syrup
Different taste
Use the same amount then taste
A 1:1 simple syrup sweetens at very nearly the same strength as a 3:1 honey syrup, so the volume swap is honest.
What changes
What you lose is everything that made it honey: the floral top note, the faint beeswax smell, and the slight tackiness on the palate.
Best for
any recipe where honey is a sweetener rather than the point, lemonade, sours where you have other strong flavours
Be clear-eyed about this one. A Bee's Knees made with simple syrup is a gin sour, and a Gold Rush made with simple syrup is a whiskey sour. Both are good drinks, they are just not the drink you were making.
4Maple syrup
Different taste
Use the same amount straight from the bottle
Maple syrup is already thin enough to mix into cold liquid, which makes it the easiest one-bottle swap in the pantry.
What changes
It sweetens at a similar strength but tastes woody, faintly smoky and caramelised rather than floral.
Best for
whiskey and bourbon drinks, Gold Rush style sours, coffee drinks, glazes
It works better with brown spirits than with gin. In a whiskey sour the maple reads as a deliberate choice. In a gin drink it can taste slightly out of place, like breakfast wandered into the glass.
5Agave nectar
Different taste
About three quarters as much
Thinner than honey and it mixes cold without any help.
What changes
Mostly neutral sweetness with a faint vegetal, almost grassy edge. Because it is high in fructose it tastes sweeter than sugar, so scale it back or the drink goes cloying.
Best for
tequila and mezcal drinks, iced tea, vegan versions of honey recipes
The obvious pick if you are making a honey recipe vegan. The honey aroma is completely gone, so expect a cleaner, simpler sweetness rather than a substitute you would fail to notice.
6Golden syrup or cane syrup
Different taste
Use the same amount loosened with a splash of water if it is very thick
Both are thick invert sugar syrups, so they give you the syrupy body honey syrup has, plus a butterscotch note instead of a floral one.
What changes
Cane syrup in particular is closer in weight and mouthfeel than simple syrup is.
Best for
rum drinks, baking, anywhere you want body as well as sweetness
Stir a teaspoon of hot water into a tablespoon of golden syrup if it is too stiff to pour. Neither one tastes remotely of honey, but both feel right in the mouth, which matters more than people expect.

What is Honey Syrup?

Honey Syrup is plain honey thinned with hot water, almost always three parts honey to one part water, so that it pours easily and blends into a cold drink instead of sinking to the bottom of the glass in a lump.

Cooking tips

Three parts honey to one part hot water is the working standard, and a 1:1 honey syrup also exists but is much thinner and less sweet. If you have made a 1:1 batch and the recipe wanted 3:1, use roughly half again as much.
Honey clings to everything. Rinse your measuring spoon in hot water first, or better, weigh the honey, and it will slide out cleanly instead of leaving a third of itself behind.
Pick the honey deliberately. Clover, acacia or orange blossom stay in the background and let gin or lemon lead. Buckwheat, chestnut and manuka are dark and assertive enough to take over a drink completely, which is sometimes what you want in a Penicillin.
Diluting honey removes the very low water content that makes raw honey shelf stable, so honey syrup is a perishable ingredient. Keep it in the fridge, expect about a month, and throw it out if it turns cloudy, smells yeasty or starts to fizz, which means it has begun to ferment.
For a Penicillin, honey-ginger syrup is the actual target: steep a few coins of fresh ginger in the hot water for ten minutes before you stir the honey in, and strain.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just use honey straight instead of honey syrup?

Not in a cold drink. Honey at room temperature is thick, and honey hitting ice is close to solid, so it will stick to the bottom of the shaker in a lump and the drink will come out both under-sweet and unevenly sweet. In anything hot, a toddy, tea, a warm glaze, honey straight is completely fine, and you should use about three quarters as much as the syrup called for.

Can I leave it out?

No, not without replacing it with something. Honey syrup is the entire sweetening element in drinks like a Bee's Knees or a Gold Rush, and without it you are left with spirit and raw lemon juice, which is genuinely unpleasant. If you have nothing else, simple syrup or even a teaspoon of granulated sugar shaken hard until it dissolves will get the drink to a drinkable place.

What is the ratio for honey syrup?

Three parts honey to one part hot water by volume, which is why you sometimes see it written as 3:1 honey syrup. A tidy batch is 6 tablespoons of honey and 2 tablespoons of hot water, which makes about half a cup and is enough for a dozen drinks.

How long does honey syrup keep?

About a month in a sealed jar in the fridge. It lasts longer than plain simple syrup because honey brings some of its own preservative character, but far less long than undiluted honey, which effectively never spoils. Discard it if it goes hazy or fizzy.

Is honey syrup the same as hot honey?

No. Hot honey is honey infused with chilli and is still full-strength honey, so it is thick and spicy. Honey syrup is diluted and has no heat. If hot honey is all you have, thin it 3:1 with hot water as usual and be aware you are adding chilli warmth to whatever you are making, which is actually rather good in a whiskey sour.

Related substitutes

More sweeteners substitutes

Honey Syrup substitute

Other honey syrup substitutes

2Honey stirred into the warm part of the recipe

3Simple syrup

4Maple syrup

5Agave nectar

6Golden syrup or cane syrup