Moscow Mule
| IBA Official Cocktail | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Moscow mule as served at Rye, San Francisco, California, United States | |
| Type | Mixed drink |
| Primary alcohol by volume | |
| Served | On the rocks; poured over ice |
| Standard garnish |
Lime slice |
| Standard drinkware | copper mug |
| IBA specified ingredients* |
|
| Preparation | Combine vodka and ginger beer in a highball glass filled with ice. Add lime juice. Stir gently. Garnish. |
| * Moscow mule recipe at International Bartenders Association | |
Lime slice
A Moscow mule is a cocktail made with vodka, spicy ginger beer, and lime juice, garnished with a slice or wedge of lime. It is a type of buck and therefore sometimes known as a vodka buck. The Moscow mule is usually served in a copper mug.
The cocktail was invented in 1941 by John G. Martin of G.F. Heublein Brothers, Inc., an American East Coast spirits and food distributor based in Hartford, Connecticut, and "Jack" Morgan, President of Cock 'n' Bull Products (which produced ginger beer) and proprietor of the The Cock and Bull restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, which was popular with celebrities.
George Sinclair quotes from a 2007 article run in the New York Herald Tribune:
The mule was born in Manhattan but "stalled" on the West Coast for the duration. The birthplace of "Little Moscow" was in New York's Chatham Hotel. That was back in 1941 when the first carload of Jack Morgan's Cock 'n' Bull ginger beer was railing over the plains to give New Yorkers a happy surprise… The Violette Family helped. Three friends were in the Chatham bar, one John A. Morgan, known as Jack, president of Cock 'n' Bull Products and owner of the Hollywood Cock 'n' Bull Restaurant; one was John G. Martin, president of G.F. Heublein Brothers Inc. of Hartford, Conn., and the third was Rudolph Kunett, president of the Pierre Smirnoff, Heublein's vodka division. As Jack Morgan tells it, "We three were quaffing a slug, nibbling an hors d'oeuvre and shoving toward inventive genius". Martin and Kunett had their minds on their vodka and wondered what would happen if a two-ounce shot joined with Morgan's ginger beer and the squeeze of a lemon. Ice was ordered, lemons procured, mugs ushered in and the concoction put together. Cups were raised, the men counted five and down went the first taste. It was good. It lifted the spirit to adventure. Four or five days later the mixture was christened the Moscow mule...
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Wikipedia