Dangerous Things Mules!
I think it may have kicked me in the head.
I start with a warning that there is going to be some gratuitous and unnecessary maths in this post, so if you are allergic to number you can just skip on past those and stick to the words.
I did say “If it don’t kick then it ain’t a mule” but I think the kick is supposed to come from the Ginger rather than the vodka and this is an important part we will get to later.
This is a follow on to the Moscow Mule post here →
Lies, Damn Lies, and Company History Advertising Stories
There is a saying among my friends that every new job needs a new power tool! Their wives never seem to agree but we hold out that it is an undeniable fact of nature that cannot be resisted. Well, I’m starting to think that a variation of this rule might apply to anything. This seems to be borne out by the fact that almost every cocktail needs a new ing…
I confess, I’m a bit of a lightweight when it comes to hangovers, often just walking past a bar can leave me with a headache in the morning, and so I’m not the best to speak about the effects of one drink or another, but I did have a sore head on Saturday morning that it took a couple of Excedrin and a 105km bike ride to get rid of. A well made Moscow Mule is basically an alcopop, namely you are hard pressed to spot the alcohol in it and so they just go down so well on a warm evening. Therein lies the problem and why we need some maths.
Smirnoff vodka is 37.5% ABV, if you add the ginger beer and the lime juice and assume a little melting of the ice (20 ml), depending on how quickly you drink it then your overall Mule comes in at:
(50 x 37.5) / (50+120+10+20) = 9.4% ABV or roughly the equivalent of a medium sized glass of white wine. So, you can’t get through too many before you start to forget where home is. Now, as you might expect, Smirnoff spotted this problem as an opportunity to maximise revenue and brought out the Smirnoff Mule. A premixed Moscow mule with half the ABV content. Foul we should all cry, you are basically giving us alcoholic ginger beer and charging a cocktail price premium for it.
So, I want to go the other way strengthening rather than weakening it and here it my reasoning…
I think the key to the Mule is the ginger beer. Too sweet and you have something sickly and not refreshing, and I bet this is the way the Smirnoff Mule has gone. I would make my own ginger beer but in Singapore with my condo being about 35 degrees centigrade (95 fahrenheit for those of you who don’t think a scale based on the worlds most abundant substance is sensible) for most of the day, the risk of exploding bottles putting my deposit at risk is just too high! So, I think the best way to go is probably an alcoholic ginger beer like Royal Jamaican or Crabby’s as these are never too sweet and still keep that ginger kick. The problem is that now you have a Mule that kicks both with ginger and alcohol as follows:
Smirnoff vodka 37.5% 50ml
Lime juice 0% 10ml
Royal Jamaican 4.4% 120ml
Plus a bit of ice melt and you have ((37.5 x 50) + (120 x 4.4)) / (50 + 120 + 10 + 20) = 12% ABV or roughly the equivalent of a medium glass of medium bodied red wine.
All in it’s a great drink, so thanks to Sophie, John, and Jack for whatever contribution they may had had.