Why the Mule Is the Ultimate Workhorse Cocktail
We may be living through the age of the aperitivo and unendingly mad for Martinis, but if we’re really being honest, the cocktail we’re reaching for just as often — if not more — is the workaday Moscow Mule.
This bright concoction of ginger beer, vodka, lime and soda in its distinctive copper vessel might not garner the media love of its posher, pre-Prohibition counterparts — except perhaps that time word got out that it’s Oprah Winfrey’s favorite cocktail. But numbers don’t lie.
The Mule was the third best-selling cocktail of 2023 in the United States, trailing only the Margarita and the Martini, according to NielsenQ (NIQ) data compiled from more than 10,000 independent and chain restaurants and bars. The Mule also ranked 10th on Drinks International’s annual compendium of the 50 most popular cocktails worldwide according to bartenders, behind the auspicious likes of the Negroni, Old Fashioned, Daiquiri, Espresso and Dry Martinis, and the Whiskey Sour. The Gin-Gin Mule, bartender Audrey Saunders’s early-aughts creation that subs in gin for vodka and borrows a minty garnish from the Mojito (or perhaps Winfrey), rounded out the list at No. 50.
The OG Influencer Cocktail?
Chalk up the Mule’s success to its refreshing simplicity as a sweet, citrusy cocktail with ginger’s invigorating warmth and the flavorless burn of vodka. A profitable crowd-pleaser that doubles as an on-ramp to more chichi mixology, you’ll find a Mule at both juggernaut restaurant chain Texas Roadhouse (in the form of a Kentucky Mule, swapping the vodka for bourbon) and at New York’s buzzing Double Chicken Please (No. 7 on the North American 50 Best Bars list).
Or maybe we love that charming, gimmicky mug that keeps the drink frosty-cold. (It’s proven a tempting enough souvenir to warrant anti-theft measures by bars and plenty of news media attention through the years.) In fact, this eye-catching vessel arguably made the Mule one of the original influencer cocktails. As an often repeated origin story goes, in 1939, a small drinks trader named John G. Martin acquired the American rights to a large Russian vodka brand called Smirnoff. Meanwhile, his friend Jack Morgan, owner of the Cock’N’Bull Saloon in Los Angeles, was trying to launch his own brand of ginger beer without much luck. The two purportedly met at New York’s Chatham Bar, where they hatched the idea to mix Martin’s vodka with Morgan’s ginger beer and add a squeeze of lime. They decided to promote and serve the drink in a striking copper mug (designed by Russian Sophie Berezinski for her father’s copper factory — and, until then, selling quite poorly). The rest was, as they say, history.
Ginger beer exists at the fortuitous intersection of a number of converging trends — among them the rise of craft spirit-free and so-called functional beverages.
Bartenders have long toyed with the Mule’s component parts, subbing its vodka base for gin, Jamaican rum, Pimm’s, apple brandy, mezcal, or bourbon, and zhuzhing its flavor profile with everything from absinthe to raspberries, hibiscus, peach schnapps, and sarsaparilla.
This doesn’t always spring from the minds of barkeeps, either.
“I had a woman tonight order a Caramel Mule,” one bartender wrote two years ago on the bartending subReddit. It’s possible that said patron was referencing the Smirnoff Kissed Caramel Mule, which reinforces its namesake, caramel-flavored vodka base with a caramel cube garnish. Indeed, there’s nary a household-name spirit brand that doesn’t offer up a Mule or riff recipe on its website, be it Ketel One, Skyy (with vodka or agave!), Bacardi, or Jose Cuervo.
It Must Be the Ginger Beer
It’s just as likely that the Mule’s undying popularity owes mostly to its dominant mix-in: ginger beer, the star of the also reliably beloved, mass-market rum highball: the Dark ‘n Stormy. Ginger ale’s sophisticated, British-born cousin has lately become a veritable NA powerhouse in its own right. The global ginger beer market is expected to reach $7.94 billion this year, up 7.6 percent from $7.38 billion in 2023, according to ResearchandMarkets. It might even hit $10 billion this decade, should its predicted 7.5 percent compound annual growth rate hold steady.
In 2023, Warrillow told Forbes the only reason the ginger category had been on the decline for so long until then was the “lousy soda versions on the market.”
Ginger beer exists at the fortuitous intersection of a number of converging trends, among them the rise of craft spirit-free and so-called functional beverages. Gingerol, a natural component of ginger root, has long been touted as a digestive aid, also rich in antioxidants and (purportedly) anti-inflammatory compounds. Of course, these benefits — several of which still warrant additional research — don’t really hold water once that ginger root is extracted, force-carbonated, and sweetened with sugar. But, as we’ve learned with the “healthiest” spirit, tequila, many health-conscious consumers don’t necessarily care.
British producer Fever-Tree Drinks became a household name at bars around the globe thanks to its posh bottled tonics, though it has recently trained much of its attention on its line of “Gingers.” In March, CEO Tim Warrillow claimed that Fever-Tree is now the largest ginger beer brand in the world, telling The Times that ginger beer now accounts for 20 percent of the company’s global sales and was its fastest-selling product in 2023, growing by 17 percent. In the past six years, the company has rolled out Blood Orange Ginger Beer in collaboration with Maker’s Mark and a light version of its ginger beer, plus Premium Ginger Ale (regular and light), Smoky Ginger Ale, and Spiced Orange Ginger Ale. In 2023, Warrillow told Forbes the only reason the ginger category had been on the decline for so long until then was the “lousy soda versions on the market.” As of last year, ginger was still “red hot,” he said.
On track with the “everything old becomes new again” adage (looking at you, fanny packs and Espresso ’Tinis), ginger ale may be poised for a comeback of its own. The global ginger ale market is expected to reach $4.7 billion by 2032, growing at a nice clip of over 3 percent annually, according to Future Market Insights. Fevertree’s U.S. CEO, Charles Gibb, has been quoted in product rollout press releases noting the untapped potential of ginger ale as a mix-in for premium dark spirits. Indeed, per Mintel, the U.S. market for dark spirits increased by 8.3 percent in 2023, and is “steadily climbing towards $100+ billion” by 2028, thanks in part to the explosion of youth-courting RTD cocktails. It’s not just about the premium end of the market, of course. Just ask my dad, who faithfully commences every Thanksgiving with a stiff round of Seagram’s 7 & 7 cocktails, which he always makes with Schweppes ginger ale. I suppose you’d call them 7 & Schweppes.
Ginger ale is pleasingly subtler than its spicier counterpart, and enjoys similar, enduring health-halo status to ginger beer. Moreover, it remains the choice beverage for settling stomachs and refreshing palates on airplanes. We’d stop short of recommending ginger ale as a mixer in the Moscow Mule, however. Then again, given the numbers, everyone seemingly already knows that.
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