The Moscow Mule is a drink composed of vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice, traditionally served highball-style in a copper mug. The drink purportedly originated in 1941 at the Cock ’n Bull pub in Los Angeles, during a meeting between Heublein president John Martin, who at the time was promoting Smirnoff vodka in the United States, and Cock ’n Bull owner Jack Morgan, who was similarly hoping to improve sales of his branded ginger beer (a competing history has Morgan and Martin devising the drink in New York before bringing it to Los Angeles). One version of the story (possibly apocryphal) notes that the bar also had a stock of copper mugs already on hand, which bartenders used to boost the drink’s appeal. In fact, it may have been the Cock ’n Bull’s head bartender, Charles Wesley “Wes” Price (1890–1962), who did the actual creating; he certainly claimed he did. According to him, it was first served to actors Broderick Crawford and Rod Cameron. This would have had to be before the end of 1942, when the drink first begins to surface in chronicles of the Hollywood “film colony” (the name had already turned up that summer in New York).
After largely disappearing from use in the latter third of the twentieth century, the drink enjoyed a tremendous revival starting around 2010, when bartenders began adding the drink to cocktail menus, and copper mugs became so ubiquitous as to be available at corner drugstores. The drink’s popularity came with a price: many bars serving the drink suffered large levels of theft of the signature copper mugs, and in response some began requiring a credit card be held on file until the mug was returned.
Recipe: Combine in ice-filled copper mule mug or highball glass 60 ml vodka, 15 ml lime juice, and 90 ml ginger beer. Stir.
See also Smirnoff.
Gwynn, Edith. “Inside Hollywood.” Albuquerque Journal, December 13, 1942, 16.
Mosby, Aline. “Inventor Claims ‘Moscow Mule’ Is Really Art.” Boston Globe, November 18, 1951, 37.
Simonson, Robert. “At Age 75, the Moscow Mule Gets Its Kick Back.” New York Times, July 20, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/dining/moscow-mule.html (accessed February 21, 2021).
Vinh, Tan. “Seattle Bars Getting Moscow Mule Mugged.” Seattle Times, May 23, 2013. https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/seattle-bars-getting-moscow-mule-mugged/ (accessed February 21, 2021).
By: Paul Clarke