Airmail
An Airmail is 45ml of aged rum, 15ml of fresh lime juice and 15ml of honey syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds, double strained into a chilled flute and topped with 60ml of cold, dry champagne, with a sprig of mint. About 2.5 UK units. It is usually placed in Cuba in the 1930s, after a regular airmail service to Havana began in 1930, and it is said to have first appeared in a Bacardí booklet. W.C. Whitfield printed it in Here’s How in 1941, and Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts carried it in 1949. Most recipes pour 30ml each of rum and wine; ours is fuller in both. Under the bubbles it is a honey daiquiri. The honey gives the drink floral weight that plain syrup lacks, and it meets the caramel of an aged rum on common ground, so the core stays warm under a cold, dry top.
Glassware: Champagne Flute
Garnish: Mint sprig
Ingredients
45ml
At 40% ABV, with oak and dried fruit that carry through the wine. Jamaican or Barbadian styles suit it. White rum, which many recipes allow, makes a lighter, plainer drink.
15ml
Squeezed the same day. Fifteen millilitres is less than a Daiquiri takes, because the champagne brings acidity of its own.
15ml
Two parts honey to one part warm water. It gives the drink its body and floral note, and it is what separates the Airmail from a sparkling Daiquiri.
60ml
Brut and cold, at about 12% ABV. A dry crémant, cava or English traditional-method sparkling wine works as well. Like all wine, it contains sulphites.
Instructions
Squeeze the lime juice the same day.
Chill a flute of about 200ml.
Add the rum, lime juice and honey syrup to a shaker.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into the chilled flute.
Top slowly with the champagne, poured down the side of the glass.
Garnish with a mint sprig.
Our version
Most recipes pour 30ml of rum and 15ml each of lime and honey syrup, topped with 30ml of sparkling wine. Ours raises the aged rum to 45ml and the champagne to 60ml, for a longer drink with more rum at its core.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Make the honey syrup two parts honey to one part warm water, stirred until smooth, and keep it in the fridge for up to a fortnight. Neat honey seizes on contact with ice and sticks to the tin. Double strain the shaken base, then pour the champagne slowly down the side of the flute. Poured fast into the middle, it foams over the rim and you lose both wine and fizz. Use a dry wine. A brut champagne, crémant or dry cava suits it; a demi-sec or a sweet prosecco piles sugar onto the honey, and there is no more acid in the glass to answer it.
Behind the Airmail
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The Airmail is usually placed in Cuba in the 1930s. Flights between Key West and Havana began in 1925, and a regular airmail service followed in 1930, at a time when airmail was the fastest way to reach another country.
It is said to have first appeared in a Bacardí booklet. W.C. Whitfield printed it in Here’s How in 1941 with the line “It ought to make you fly high”, and Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts carried it in 1949. It then went quiet until the PDT Cocktail Book of 2011.
Why Honey
Swap the honey for sugar syrup and you have a sparkling Daiquiri, a good drink and a different one.
Honey brings floral weight and a little viscosity, and both count once the wine goes in. It also shares caramel and dried fruit with an aged rum. Take away the champagne and rum, lime and honey make Cuba’s Canchánchara.
The Rum
Aged rum gives the drink a core the wine cannot bury. Look for oak and dried fruit: a Jamaican or Barbadian aged rum, or a softer Guatemalan one.
White rum makes a lighter and crisper drink. Overproof does not suit it: at 45ml under the wine, it reads hot rather than warm.
The Champagne Top
Sixty millilitres, dry and very cold, poured slowly down the inside of the flute once the shaken base is in. Most recipes add only 30ml; the extra wine makes ours longer and drier.
Beside the French 75
The Airmail beside the common recipe and the French 75
Airmail (ours)
- Spirit
- 45ml aged rum
- Citrus
- 15ml lime
- Sweetener
- 15ml honey syrup
- Top
- 60ml champagne
- UK units
- About 2.5
Airmail, common recipe
- Spirit
- 30ml rum
- Citrus
- 15ml lime
- Sweetener
- 15ml honey syrup
- Top
- 30ml sparkling wine
- UK units
- About 1.6
French 75
- Spirit
- 30ml gin
- Citrus
- 15ml lemon
- Sweetener
- 15ml sugar syrup
- Top
- 60ml champagne
- UK units
- About 1.9
| Drink | Spirit | Citrus | Sweetener | Top | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airmail (ours) | 45ml aged rum | 15ml lime | 15ml honey syrup | 60ml champagne | About 2.5 |
| Airmail, common recipe | 30ml rum | 15ml lime | 15ml honey syrup | 30ml sparkling wine | About 1.6 |
| French 75 | 30ml gin | 15ml lemon | 15ml sugar syrup | 60ml champagne | About 1.9 |
How to Serve It
In a chilled flute, straight away, with a sprig of mint on top for the nose. Serve it where you would serve a French 75 and expect it to land warmer at the core.
For the gin original of the same idea, make a French 75; without the honey and the wine, a Daiquiri; for rum, lime, mint and champagne, an Old Cuban.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Aged RumAged rum is rum that has spent years in oak casks, usually ex-bourbon barrels, and taken on vanilla, caramel and dried fruit; most is bottled at 40 to 46% ABV. In our recipes it is the rum for drinks where you should taste the spirit: the Old Cuban, the Mai Tai, the Rum Sour and the punch bowl.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Airmail cocktail?
Why is it called the Airmail?
Where does the Airmail come from?
Do I need real champagne?
Can I use sugar syrup instead of honey?
Can I use white rum?
How strong is an Airmail?
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French 75
A French 75 is 30ml of London Dry gin, 15ml of fresh lemon juice and 15ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds, double strained into a chilled flute and topped with 60ml of cold brut champagne, with a lemon twist. About 1.9 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s. The name is the French army’s 75mm field gun of the First World War. The drink is usually credited to Harry MacElhone and Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, often with the date 1915, but the printed record starts later. MacElhone’s ‘75’ of 1922 was calvados, gin, grenadine and absinthe. The gin, lemon, sugar and champagne recipe appears under the name French 75 in Here’s How, by Judge Jr., in 1927. Built that way, it is a Tom Collins with champagne in place of soda: a short gin sour that the wine lengthens and lifts.
Daiquiri
A Daiquiri is 60ml white rum, 20ml fresh lime juice and two bar spoons of caster sugar. Stir the sugar into the rum and lime in the shaker until it dissolves, then add ice, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strain into a chilled coupe. About 2.4 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures, and its method dissolves the sugar first too. The name belongs to Daiquirí, an iron-mining district and beach near Santiago de Cuba. The drink is usually credited to Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer in Cuba around the Spanish-American War of 1898. Constantino Ribalaigua Vert later refined and popularised it in Havana at El Floridita. With three ingredients and no liqueur or bitters, the Daiquiri hides nothing. A flat rum, tired lime or undissolved sugar shows in the first sip.
Hemingway Daiquiri
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Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026