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Moscow Mule

Medium

With pure, clean vodka, spicy ginger and zingy lime, the Moscow Mule cocktail sparked the vodka craze of the 1950s and the popularity of this great white spirit ever since.
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About this recipe

The Moscow Mule is the perfect long drink, ideal for summer with its fresh, citrus lime flavour and cool, clean vodka. However, don’t ignore the fact it’s great for colder evenings too, when you can go easier on the ice. Despite its baby boomer birthdate, the Moscow Mule cocktail is part of a history of mules dating from the 19th century. These are better known as buck drinks, which combine a spirit base with citrus juice and ginger beer. Nowadays ginger beer and ginger ale are used interchangeably, so either can top up the drink – the only question is then whether you serve it in a traditional copper cup or highball. It all started for the Moscow Mule with the purchase of the US rights to the Smirnoff brand by local entrepreneur Rudolf Kunett in 1933, bringing vodka to the attention of an audience on the other side of the Atlantic. Executive John Martin then persuaded his employers, Heublein, to buy out Kunett, but sales failed to take off. Fast forward to 1946 and Martin is sitting in the Chatham Bar in New York with the owner of Hollywood venue Cock ‘n’ Bull Jack Morgan, who was finding it hard to sell his own-made ginger beer. So Martin brings his vodka together with Morgan’s ginger beer, they add some lime, probably from a nearby Cuba Libre cocktail, and serve in copper mug containers that another business contact was trying to sell. And so the Moscow Mule was born from this entrepreneurial mix. Martin then took pictures of the cocktail being held by bartenders in one hand, with a bottle of Smirnoff in the other hand. He headed to the neighbouring bar and showed the bartender what they were missing, and repeated. The Smirnoff Vodka Moscow Mule took off with the brand’s backing. It was largely responsible for the popularity of vodka in the 1950s in the US, and has become a modern classic cocktail ever since. Modern variants on the Moscow Mule recipe include the Bohemian Mule, with absinthe instead of vodka; a Jamaican Mule where you add spiced rum, a Mexican Mule based on tequila instead of vodka and the New Orleans Mule which uses bourbon instead of vodka, plus coffee liqueur and pineapple juice. To create a Rum Buck add lime juice to a Dark ‘N’ Stormy. Or just enjoy the clear, clean spicy flavour of a great Moscow Mule.

Ingredients for

◄

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50ml.
Smirnoff No. 21® Vodka
125ml.
Ginger Beer
1dash(es)
Angostura Bitters
1twist(s)
Lime Juice
➤ 2.4 units of alcohol per serve

Equipment

1 x
Tall glass
1 x
Ice
1 x
Jigger
1 x
Knife
1 x
Chopping Board

How to make

Fill a glass with ice.

Fill a tall glass with ice.
Pour Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka, ginger beer, angostura bitters and lime juice into the glass.

Using a jigger, pour 50ml Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka into the glass. Add a dash of angostura bitters and a twist of lime juice.
Top up with ginger beer.

Top up the drink with 125ml ginger beer.

Grab a bite

Get some grub in before or while you’re drinking – it slows alcohol absorption.
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Smirnoff No. 21® Vodka

A vodka that's known around the world, Smirnoff is born of a long history of charcoal filtration to give smooth mouth feel and a pure, clean flavour.

Moscow Mule

About this recipe

Ingredients for

Equipment

How to make

Grab a bite

Smirnoff No. 21® Vodka

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