Moscow Mule

The Moscow Mule is one of my favorite drinks and it has been around since the 1940’s. The story goes that a young lady named Sophie Berezinski immigrated to the United States from Russia with 2,000 solid copper mugs that had been manufactured in her father’s factory in Russia called the Moscow Copper Co. She wasn’t a very good salesperson and couldn’t find a way to sell her mugs.

One day, in 1941, at the Cock ‘n’ Bull in California, a gentleman named Jack Morgan who owned the bar, sat drinking with his good friend John Morgan. Now, Jack had created a brand of ginger beer that he was trying to market with not much success and John had just purchased the Smirnoff Vodka Distillery. Back in those days, vodka was not a popular drink at all in the U.S., so John was having a real problem selling the vodka.

As the guys sat in the bar drinking and discussing their problems with selling their respective drinks, in comes Sophie carrying her copper mugs. As Sophie tells the story, once they all discovered they had a similar problem, the three of them spent hours creating a drink that incorporated vodka, ginger beer, and those copper mugs. After a number of different recipes were tried, they made one that they finally liked. It combined the fizzy nature of the ginger beer, the kick of the vodka, and the ice-cold properties of the copper mug and on that day the Moscow Mule was created!

I love this drink because of the flavorful nature of the ginger beer. It’s really light and refreshing. You’ll need to use a good vodka with this one too since it’s one of the stars of the drink.

Be sure to click here to see the video tutorial on our YouTube channel!

Cheers!