Drinking Behind the Iron Curtain: The History of the Moscow Mule
Behold! The drunken accident that single-handedly made vodka Hollywood's drink of choice.
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We’ve teamed up with Stolichnaya, THE Vodka, to explore the coloured history of three of the most popular cocktails in the world. Number two: THE Moscow Mule.
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Where It All Began
The year is 1941. World War II is raging across the Eastern Front and Churchill is fighting them on the beaches, in the landing grounds, etc. Roosevelt is in the White House and Australia has no less than three Prime Ministers in one year due to the in-fighting of an unstable government – boy, how times have changed!
This is the year America launches two great wars. The first, a quick-step into WWII following Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. The second, a war against the tyranny of uninspired vodka-based cocktails with the advent of the Moscow Mule.
Humble Beginnings
Like all great stories the origin of the Moscow Mule is one garnished with folklore and rumour, but what we do know for certain is that it definitely had a lot to do with marketing and surplus stock. Basically vodka, or ‘Communist tap-water’, was having trouble finding its place in the capitalist paradise of America. In those days America was all whiskey = good, Russia = bad. Meanwhile, a ginger beer manufacturer in Hollywood was having a similar problem competing against the more popular ginger ale and root beer. What’s the difference, you ask? No idea, I answer.
Anyhoo, these two sagging distributors met up at the ginger beer guy’s bar, the Cock ‘n Bull Restaurant in downtown Hollywood, to drink whiskey and yammer about the refreshment trade. Someone, probably a fresh-faced barkeep named Jimmy who was polishing glasses with a dirty rag, suggested combining the two along with some lemon juice. Jimmy (who would never be credited for his contribution and would later die of the consumption and be buried alone in an unmarked grave, probably) brought over some ice, poured a few drinks and somewhere over the course of the evening the drink was christened “The Flaming Moe’… I mean “The Moscow Mule”.
The owner of a local copper factory, who almost certainly also had a bunch of inventory he needed to offload, muscled in on the action by being all “Awesome idea you guys! But it needs a hook. I know, you should only serve them in a special kind of mug! Say copper? Yeah! Copper mugs!” They, in the well-trod tradition of stupid crap you agree to while under the influence, also decided to engrave the sides of these copper mugs with the names of local celebrities figuring that would be enough to get famous people to start drinking the drink. The dumbest part? It worked.
It just makes you feel special, y’know?
It Kicks Like A…
The Cock ‘n Bull was already a fairly popular spot on the Sunset Strip at the time, and the Moscow Mule soon took off. Famous film stars could be seen drinking the cocktail in the distinctive copper cups, etched with their names and stored behind the bar just for them. It sounds sort of lame but can’t you totally see Yeezy, Beiber and Miley going wild for this sort of pared back, old Hollywood elitism? And can’t you just imagine reading about Lindsey punching a kitten because no one would let her have one?
Drink historian (Drink historian, that’s a job? Does accredited life experience count towards the degree? I’ve straight up completed at least 35 units this week already) Eric Felten says props for the drink’s creation actually did belong to a Cock ‘n Bull bartender. According to Felten the unnamed (see? see?) bartender said he “just wanted to clean out the basement.”
The Moscow Mule is still considered the cocktail that properly launched the vodka craze in the United States and it’s pretty interesting to note that the drink, and vodka in general, maintained its popularity all throughout the ‘Communist Scare’ which gripped the nation through the late 40s and 50s.
Hollywood’s Drink Of Choice
“There is a new drink that is a craze in the movie colony now. It is called “Moscow Mule.” – Inside Hollywood, December 27, 1942.
The birth year of the drink couldn’t have come at a better time in Hollywood. This was the year Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon and Dumbo were released. I mean, this was the year professional melancholic Greta Garbo threw her ever slender, lily-white paw to her forehead and announced ‘I vant to be left ahlone’ and abandoned acting forever. Thanks to the genius marketing ploy of personalising some rapidly oxidizing warehouse debris, The Moscow Mule became ‘the’ drink of glamour during the early 1940s. It was basically the Cosmo of the early noughties or the whatever people are drinking now (Kombucha, activated chia and broken glass? Who even knows).
Silver-screen goddess Greer Garson reportedly drank hers in a “glass of alarmingly huge proportions” and the first Moscow Mule ever sold went down the jowly gullet of film noir favourite Broderick Crawford, which is probably still pretty hot news to anyone over 85 years old.
The Moscow Mule Fan Club
A New York Herald article by Clementine Paddleford in 1948 declared “Matrons are pouring mules like pink tea and giggling like co-eds!” – which is the most delightful sentence my fingers have ever written.
It was also the favourite drink of Reno casino magnate William F. Harrah. When Edward O. Thorp wrote his book ‘Beat the Dealer’, he couldn’t name the Tahoe casino he was roughed up at for being a card counter, so he wrote “I went to the bar and had a Moscow Mule”, which was the subtle hint that the location was Harrah’s Tahoe.
[Sidebar: Thorp has the most excellent Wikipedia bio ever, reading “American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack player. Also known as the ‘father of the wearable computer’ after inventing the world’s first wearable computer.”]
In 2012 a Moscow Mule kit that included Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer was included as part of Oprah Winfrey’s Favourite Things list, with this honest-to-grug personal endorsement: “Everything you need to make a brilliant Moscow Mule, including my personal recipe. I suggest drinking at least two when you’re at Yosemite trying to pitch a tent in the rain with Gayle King.”
The next thing on the list was a $400 tee-shirt that said ‘I am not a lesbian’. Jokes, love you forever O!
THE Recipe
Courtesy of Clarences, Perth
Ingredients
60ml Stolichnaya Vodka
130ml of Ginger Beer
Half a lime cut into 3 wedges
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Directions
1) Build the vodka and ginger beer in a tall glass full of ice.
2) Squeeze the lime wedges into the drink and give a gentle stir.
3) Garnish with a lime wedge or wheel.
THE Tip: Use nice big ice blocks and have the as much ice as possible in the glass. The more ice the slower it melts so it doesn’t dilute the drink. You can try making your own ginger beer to get the flavours you want!
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Alice Williams was one of the original creators of and long-time editor for Melbourne print magazine, SPOOK. She also writes for Pedestrian, TheVine and Daily Life but she looks better on Twitter.
Feature image by Tim Turner.