Have a look at the Mule, Collins, & The Rickey

Moscow Mule

60ml Absolut Elyx
30ml lime juice
120ml ginger beer to fill

Add the vodka and lime juice to a mug. Fill with ice and top with ginger beer. Garnish with a lime or mint sprig.

Story by Sam Bygrave
Images by Christopher Pearce
Presented by Dean Simpson, Wilhelmina’s, Sydney
332 Darling Street, Balmain

In Association with Absolut Elyx

For many bars, there’s one spirit that pays the bills (and then some): vodka. More often than not, that spirit is consumed in a vodka lime and soda. This you know already.

What you may not know is that the vodka lime and soda has a long, storied history. This mix of spirit, lime, and soda is known as a Rickey. And with a few simple changes in mixers or citrus, you’ll find yourself with a Buck, a Collins, a Fizz or, as we’ve got here, a Mule.

David Embury famously characterised these related long drinks in his 1948 book, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. When you have spirit plus mixer, you’ve got yourself a Highball.

But what about the Buck, Mule, Collins, and Rickey? What these drinks all have in common is the spirit base, a citrus component, and a carbonated lengthener in the form of a mixer.

A Collins is spirit, lemon, sugar, and soda served tall. If you switch in ginger ale for the soda and discard the sugar, you’ve got yourself a Buck. If you’ve got spirit, lime juice, and soda, you get the Rickey as mentioned earlier. If you’re using vodka, lime juice, and ginger beer — hey presto, you’ve got yourself the Moscow Mule.

One word of advice though, when mixing these drinks: if you’re employing ginger beer or another sweetened kind of soda (the possibilities really are endless), you might want to bump up the citrus, sour element.

Notes on ingredients:
• Manually distilled in a copper column still from 1929, Elyx is made from a single harvest of Swedish winter wheat and the resulting spirit has a natural pure taste and unique silky texture.

• There are subtle, floral and fruity tones on the nose and the palate is fresh, pure and invigorating with a silky texture, a long-lasting smooth finish, and a subtle spiciness.

• We’ve used a flavoursome vodka with good texture for this drink, as you want something that can stand up to being mixed long.