It was a win-win situation - the bartender would drink the cocktail and realize vodka wasn’t as bad as they thought, and Martin, having actually snapped two pictures, would take it to the next bar across the street where he would spin a story about how popular the Moscow Mule was at the bar he was just at. With a Polaroid camera (new at the time) in one hand and a bottle of Smirnoff in the other, Martin would go to bars and offer the bartender a free picture of them drinking a free Moscow Mule. John Martin then came up with a marketing strategy not unlike what a social media manager would do today. The three businesspeople met in desperation, a Hail Mary attempt to figure out what to do with the things that were running them into the ground until - eureka! They came up with what they would call the Moscow Mule. Schmidt had inherited a copper factory from her father, and with it, a surplus of copper mugs. Morgan, on the other hand, had a failing side project in ginger beer - cases of it were piling up in his basement with nowhere to go. ![]() No one knew what it was, and in a time when rum was all the rage, no one wanted to try it. All found themselves in a perplexing conundrum - Martin, head of one of the largest alcohol distribution companies in America at the time, had just bought the rights to sell Smirnov (French spelling, Smirnoff) vodka during a time when vodka was wildly unpopular. ![]() One day in 1941, John Martin was visiting his friend Jack Morgan, owner of the Cock n’ Bull bar in Hollywood California, and his girlfriend Ošelín Schmidt. Because of her popularity, the drink became known as the Mamie Taylor (remember, there was a time before spell check) - today, however, it's just known as a Horse's Neck.Įventually the fame of both the actress and the drink faded away and for decades, no buck cocktail would ever be as renowned. The Scotch Lassie, a combination of whiskey, lime juice, and ginger beer originated from the American south in the 1870s, but did not become a national craze until nearly three decades later, when famed Broadway starlet Mayme Taylor (right) ordered the drink at a bar in Rochester, New York. As bartenders and drinkers alike began to experiment and add various spirits, the cocktail took onĪ variety of new names, such as the apt title Horse’s Neck with a Kick and the Scotch Lassie. The Horse’s Neck, arguably the grandfather of the buck, was a simple concoction of ginger a le and a long lemon peel. Purists will say that bucks can only be made with ginger ale and mules only with ginger beer - but we’ll say while ginger beer is better because it packs a more gingery, robust punch, either will do in a pinch.įirst appearing in the later half of the 19th century, nonalcoholic cocktails were in fashion long before the emergence of bucks and mules. It’s more common to ask for a mule, as buck and mule have pretty much become the same thing. Saying Can I get a vodka buck? Might just get you stares of confusion from the bartender nowadays. Easy to make and easy to sip, these are some of the most popular and enduring cocktails today. Mules (also known as bucks) are cocktails made with ginger beer or ginger ale, citrus juice, and any kind of spirit.
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